Wrestling News & Rumors

[Sepholio]

Originally Posted by 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.

Considering that Ronda was just at HQ, maybe she's going to get the match with Becky. If they aren't going with Shayna, then who better than Ronda really? They already have built in backstory too so it's not like they need long to build the feud. Only need to find a way to remove Shayna from the equation that makes sense and not fall back on another triple threat.

[Jordan]

Originally Posted by Seph Considering that Ronda was just at HQ, maybe she's going to get the match with Becky. If they aren't going with Shayna, then who better than Ronda really? They already have built in backstory too so it's not like they need long to build the feud. Only need to find a way to remove Shayna from the equation that makes sense and not fall back on another triple threat.

Damn this is possible for sure. I wonder... tis a shame for Shayna.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition)

Originally Posted by Observer Newsletter WWE has what on paper looks to be the weakest PPV show they have offered in a long time with the Elimination Chamber show on 3/8 at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia. The show comes just ten days after Super Showdown, meaning just one Raw and two Smackdowns to set up the show. Plus, I guess to set up WrestleMania’s main event faster, the decision was made to drop the Chamber main event, a six-way men’s match for the Universal title shot, and instead just have Roman Reigns come on Smackdown to challenge Bill Goldberg directly. Neither Goldberg or Brock Lesnar are defending the titles, and at this point top names like Reigns, Drew McIntyre, Becky Lynch, Charlotte Flair, Daniel Bryan, Bray Wyatt and Randy Orton aren’t on the show ... At press time, the entire lower bowl of the arena is set up along with 52 percent of the upper bowl, which would be for roughly 10,000 seats. Philadelphia is traditionally a very strong big show market. The secondary market get-in price is $53, so there’s not a case of a lot of tickets flooding that market at this point, nor a super high demand either. Not only is the Smackdown men’s match off, but last week on the show they had Lacey Evans talk about entering the Chamber to get a shot at the women’s title. But this week, not a word was said about it, and Naomi, who was originally booked to face Bayley at WrestleMania, scored a pin on Bayley in a tag match, which would seem to indicate a title match is still coming ... Other matches are ... a no DQ match with A.J. Styles vs. Aleister Black. The latter is the most intriguing, since beating Black a second time in a week will put him in that category of people fans lose interest in based on seeing that the company has done so. But with Styles facing Undertaker at WrestleMania, he has to be protected. There are ways to do outside interference finishes and the no DQ is obviously there for a reason.

For the 2/26 Wednesday shows, we have additional details ... The show opened with AEW doing 896,000 viewers and 397,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of the Kenny Omega vs. Pac Iron Man match. NXT did 732,000 viewers and 317,000 in 18-49 for most of the Dominik Dijakovic vs Cameron Grimes match. In the second quarter, AEW gained 69,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49 for Omega vs. Pac while NXT lost 24,000 viewers but stayed identical I 18-49 for the ending of Dijakovic vs. Grimes, the post-match and a Finn Balor interview. In the third quarter, AEW gained 2,000 viewers and 23,000 in 18-49 for the last few minutes of regulation and overtime of Omega vs. Pac, and the Pac interview. This was the AEW high point at 967,000 viewers and 449,000 in 18-49. NXT lost 21,000 viewers and 20,000 in 18-49 for Mia Yim vs. Xia Li and the post-match. In the fourth quarter, AEW lost 169,000 viewers and 86,000 in 18-49 with Luchasaurus & Jungle Boy & Marko Stunt vs. Santana & Ortiz & Sammy Guevara. NXT gained 57,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49 for the Velveteen Dream promo and Tommaso Ciampa vs. Austin Theory. This was the closest quarter overall with 798,000 to 744,000. So for the second week in a row, Ciampa/Theory segments have been NXT’s high point. In the fifth quarter, AEW gained 5,000 viewers and lost 4,000 in 18-49 for Best Friends vs. Butcher & Blade and post-match while NXT stayed even but lost 16,000 in 18-49 for the end of Ciampa vs Theory, the post-match attack by Johnny Gargano and an Undisputed Era promo. In the sixth quarter, AEW gained 15,000 viewers and 20,000 in 18-49 for Hikaru Shida vs. Yuka Sakazaki vs. Shanna vs. Big Swole while NXT lost 51,000 viewers and 30,000 in 18-49 for Killian Dain vs. Bronson Reed. In the seventh quarter, AEW lost 35,000 viewers and 8,000 in 18-49 for the Omega/Page and Young Bucks backstage segment and lots of PPV hype. The reality is that kind of backstage stuff and direct to PPV hype will lose viewers just as McIntyre’s backstage segment did on Raw. But there are times you have to sacrifice viewers to build matches. NXT lost 32,000 viewers and 15,000 in 18-49 for the Grizzled Young Veterans promo and beginning of their match with the Forgotten Sons. In the eighth quarter, AEW gained 110,000 viewers and 38,000 in 18-49 for the Jericho-Moxley weigh-ins. So they ended at 893,000 viewers and 409,000 in 18-49. NXT’s main event of Charlotte Flair vs. Bianca Belair gained 39,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49, ending with 700,000 viewers and 294,000 in 18-49. However, after AEW ended, even though the AEW Countdown show was on, NXT had one of its biggest gains ever for Flair vs. Belair, gaining 227,000 viewers and 94,000 in 18-49. When the post-match ended, a lot of the viewers switched back to TNT, as they got a big bump at 10:05 p.m. after NXT ended, for the AEW Countdown show.

Coming off the PPV show, AEW did 906,000 viewers and a 0.35 in 18-49, up 4.7 percent in ratings and 16.7 percent in the key demo. NXT did 718,000 viewers, even with pushing two cage matches, and 0.23 the demo, basically identical to the week before ... AEW was fifth for the night in 18-49, trailing the late night NBA game, Real Housewives of New Jersey, Hanwood and Sports Center after the NBA. AEW beat the early NBA game which went against most of the show on ESPN, which did 839,000 viewers and a 0.30 in 18-49. AEW did a 0.16 in 12-17 (up 166.7 percent), 0.24 in 18-49 (up 14.3 percent), 0.46 in 35-49 (up 17.9 percent and 0.34 in 50+ (down 5.6 percent) ... NXT did a 0.10 in 12-17 (up 42.9 percent), 0.16 in 18-34 (up 23.1 percent), 0.30 in 35-49 (down 9.1 percent) and 0.34 in 50+ (identical to last week).

The return of John Cena to Smackdown, plus an advertised appearance of Bill Goldberg, and the PPV bump from a big show coming the day before, led to Smackdown doing a 1.71 rating and 2,687,000 viewers. It was, as expected, the best number of the year, which I attribute more to the multiple weeks of hype to Cena than the other factors, but they all played into it. What’s notable is Cena drew a greater increase in homes than viewers, so that indicated a new audience in homes than usually don’t watch the show. The rating was up 10.3 percent from last week, which also did well due to Goldberg. The total audience was up 8.2 percent, and the viewers per home was 1.30, which is lower than usual ... For the second week in a row, and this had not been the case previously, FOX was above what it was for the same week a year ago in 18-49. The programs on the same Friday last week did 3,662,000 viewers on average but an 0.7 in the demo.

Fightful had a recent report mentioning that FOX pumped up the number of ads for last week's show to hopefully use Cena's return to try to turn around SD's sluggish ratings.

Negotiations are taking place between WWE and All Japan Pro Wrestling which would be part of Paul Levesque’s plan to start an NXT Japan group. This is a huge story within the Japanese promotions because of the feeling that WWE running the country could greatly change the landscape, even for New Japan. Within New Japan that was always the feeling that they would be dominant promotion in Japan no matter how involved CyberAgent got with DDT and Pro Wrestling NOAH, unless WWE came in. There are some in the U.K. scene who directly blame the WWE U.K. for ending what was called a boom period for UK indies. Others say it was going to happen either way and WWE isn’t really to blame ... Right now in Japan there is a lot of concern across the board about WWE entering the marketplace, particularly now when all but the top companies are vulnerable because of being unable to run shows due to the coronavirus. The idea is that if WWE makes the move soon, most companies will be in a weakened state financially and will have more trouble competing and surviving

There are about 3,000 tickets remaining for WrestleMania as far as at the box office with capacity in the 60,000 range so it should end up as a sellout or come very close. There are tons of secondary market tickets available with a $44 get in price. Regarding WrestleMania, there are no changes or new matches we’ve heard for the show. Phoenix did nothing in her appearance to build toward a match with Asuka & Sane for the titles. With the decision made for Orton to give Phoenix an RKO, they may want her to sell it for a few weeks. Regarding whether that women’s tag title match is still on the show after the injury angle was made, I was told that is still to be decided

The WWE made an announcement this week that WrestleMania will go on despite warnings about the Coronavirus. This apparently was in response to an interview Stephanie did in Tampa saying that they would monitor the situation and basically do the responsible thing but people’s health had to come first, and of course that was interpreted as if they were thinking about canceling and some fans panicked. But the announcement came off so bad. I think we’ve already seen with Saudi Arabia that unless they are forced, they are going to do what makes them the most money. If the option is left to them, they will do the show unless the decision is wrong for business because sentiment against the show would be overwhelmingly high. After 9/11, while they did move the show in Houston back, they were one of the first to do a show when nobody else would. In hindsight, they use that as part of their history in showing they were patriotic, but the reality is they had two hours to fill and the real world was not going to stop them. But nobody knows what the future will bring when it comes to the virus. The only thing is, if things get to a point where they have to even think about canceling that week, the situation will be far worse than prioritizing whether there will be a WrestleMania or not, and it’ll take all the major sports and entertainment events canceling to where WWE will basically have to do it if it were to happen. The bad part is that most events draw from the area and WrestleMania draws from all over the world and it will bring 50,000 to 75,000 tourists to Tampa

The coronavirus remains the major story in Japan, and continues to affect the pro wrestling scene. Dragon Gate was the latest promotion that has canceled shows, running its last show on 3/1 in Osaka . The company is scheduled to return to touring on 3/14 in Kariya ... New Japan has made no further announcements and at press time will start back touring 3/16 at Takaoka. They have also made no announcements regarding the handling of the New Japan Cup tournament that was scheduled to start on 3/4, nor have they rescheduled the Tetsuya Naito vs. Hiromu Takahashi match. Pro Wrestling NOAH and Stardom, which were scheduled to return on 3/20, have canceled those dates and more dates beyond. There have been smaller companies that have continued to run shows. DDT ran an empty arena show on 3/1 and Stardom has its major 3/8 show at Korakuen Hall as a live YouTube show for the first time, which, because it’s an 11:30 a.m. show on that day in Japan, will air 9:30 p.m. Eastern time in the U.S. That will also be a show with no spectators ... But everything is subject to change based on government directives, which is probably New Japan hasn’t made any statements this week. The reason nothing has been said this week new by companies is that nobody knows anything. They are waiting for the government to say it’s okay to hold public events, because it would come across badly for companies to run when the directive is out ... The big concern in wrestling is that most of the companies that operate on a small, if any, profit margin, don’t have the money to pay expenses without regular revenue coming in from live show gates and merchandise. Some are at risk of closing down or having to merge.

The [AEW Revolution] show, highlighted by the Omega & Page tag title defense over the Young Bucks, was a major success across the boards. We don’t have cable numbers yet, but for iPPV through B/R Live, it was up more than 10 percent from Full Gear and at the same level as Double or Nothing (in the range of 37,000 which is an excellent number for iPPV buys). FITE number were the highest for any AEW show to date (which would mean among the highest for that platform of any event in history), but they were going to be the highest of the AEW shows. The U.K. market no longer had television PPV so FITE would be the only way to get it legally. The number of U.K. total buyers will be down, but that was unavoidable with the closing of ITV Box Office and being unable to get a new PPV television platform. The indications based on data in is that it would have been second behind DON of the four shows based on B/R and FITE numbers, but the cable numbers aren’t in, Germany TV numbers aren’t big but are new and you lose some in the U.K. so it’s not a lock it’ll be No. 2, but will beat Full Gear.

It was only the second event in AEW history to trend on Google, with 100,000 searches. It was still only half of the 200,000 that Super Showdown did largely due to Undertaker, Bill Goldberg and Brock Lesnar being on the show. All In and the other PPVs besides Double or Nothing (which did 220,000) never cracked the top 20. Overall the numbers have to be taken as a positive, but it’s not like they are at WWE or UFC big show levels of general public interest. But they are well ahead of Takeovers, all but the biggest Bellator shows, at the general interest level of some WWE PPVs and most UFC events that aren’t on PPV.

WWE pulled Lio Rush from the 16 Carat Gold tournament that takes place 3/6 to 3/8 in Oberhausen, Germany. They did so less than 72 hours before the tournament started. Because of its business with WWE, the promotion has refused to book any talent associated with AEW and while Jeff Cobb, who they got as a last minute replacement, is not an AEW wrestler he was just on the AEW show. They won’t even mention AEW by name for fear of it causing heat with WWE.

Nothing is new on the Jeff Cobb front. The last word we got is that he hadn’t made up his mind on whether to sign or not. As noted before, his goal for this year when he didn’t sign with ROH was to continue working ROH, but return to the indie scene where he’d be perhaps the biggest star touring since almost everyone else has signed somewhere, with the key being open to anything New Japan wanted since he really liked working for that company and New Japan was planning on doing more U.S. events

The Maryland State Athletic Commission has completed its investigation into the Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley lights out match from the Full Gear PPV in Baltimore. The next step is one of two things, a hearing held on the investigation and vote on whether to impose sanctions on the promotion or enter into a negotiated settlement.

Cody talked to TSN in Canada about how he’s studying boxing and MMA on how to build big events rather than wrestling. “I’m a big fan of the big fights. I’ve learned more about wrestling recently from UFC and boxing than I have from wrestling. And I mean no disrespect to an industry I’ve loved my entire life, I just mean the big fights and the presence of somebody like a Conor McGregor, the presence of a Floyd Mayweather and even the other night with what we saw with Deontay [Wilder] and [Tyson] Fury, you don’t get that every week, but you do get some of it. And that some of it is super important. It can’t be throwaway.”

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Friday's News Edition):

Originally Posted by Observer Radio show host Peter Rosenberg is returning to WWE in a familiar role. WWE issued a press release today announcing that Rosenberg will return as an analyst for their pay-per-view pre-shows starting with Elimination Chamber this Sunday. Rosenberg "will also serve as a special correspondent for various WWE Network shows and upcoming specials."

Guess WWE was interested in his money again since the rumor was the only reason he was on WWE pre-shows was because he kept paying to be on tv.

Originally Posted by Observer The NWA Worlds Heavyweight Championship will officially be on the line at ROH Supercard of Honor XIV. ROH confirmed this morning that Nick Aldis will defend his NWA title against PCO at Supercard of Honor. The match was set up at the end of ROH's Free Enterprise show last month. PCO & Marty Scurll defeated Aldis & Rush in the main event of Free Enterprise. After dissension between Aldis and Rush, PCO pinned Aldis to get the win. Scurll then cut a promo about his NWA title match against Aldis at the Crockett Cup on Sunday, April 19. Scurll said he would personally write Aldis a check for $500,000 if Aldis beats him. Scurll also said Aldis would face PCO at Supercard of Honor. That would have set up a match between the ROH and NWA champions, but PCO lost the ROH World Championship to Rush last weekend. That was in a triple threat match that also included Mark Haskins. The finish involved Aldis Interfering and hitting PCO with the NWA title belt.

Originally Posted by PWI Former Impact Wrestling Knockouts Champion Su Yung's Impact Wrestling deal has expired and she is now officially a free agent, PWInsider.com has confirmed. Yung, 30, is at tonight's Impact TV taping, but she would be free to negotiate and sign elsewhere.

Originally Posted by PWI Former NWA and ECW World Champion Terry Funk sent word that that he will be cancelling his scheduled appearance and signing at tomorrow's Big Event in NYC. Funk, 75 years old, continues to deal with a number of health issues and will not be able to make the travel from Amarillo, Texas to New York (multiple flights from point A to point B) in order to make the appearance. His forthcoming appearance in Philadelphia should be considered iffy at best as well. Funk was very upset about not being able to make the trip, feeling he was letting fans down.

Originally Posted by PWI King County in Washington State issued the following announcement: Stadium worker tests positive for COVID-19; Professional sporting events to continue in King County, with patrons urged to follow public health guidelines March 5, 2020 A part-time employee at CenturyLink Field who worked at the Feb. 22 Seattle Dragons game has tested positive for COVID-19, though risk to fans who attended is low, according to county health officials. As of now, Seattle’s professional sports organizations – Dragons, First & Goal/Seahawks, Mariners, and Sounders FC – will continue with scheduled events. The teams are in touch with local health officials and their respective leagues on a regular basis, as this public health issue continues to evolve.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Regarding the makeup of the WWE creative staff, we were told by someone with knowledge of the situation that there are seven females on the staff. We were told there are four women on Raw and three on SmackDown, one of whom is a writer’s assistant but can pitch ideas.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Tickets for AEW’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in May are selling very well. A non-AEW affiliated account that monitors ticket sales is listing the May 23rd event at 9,241 tickets sold with a set-up for 11,083 seats. We spoke with an AEW official who told us that the figures were ‘in the right neighborhood’. (NOTE: We originally had listed the ticket sales for the May 27th episode of Dynamite at the MGM Grand but have corrected the item to reflect that the figures are for ‘Double or Nothing’).

Originally Posted by Fightful Now six days into March of 2020, there is one major story looming over every top professional wrestling promotion currently active, where will Matt Hardy go next? ... Speaking exclusively with Sports Illustrated, Matt expanded upon his thought process, revealing that he is in talks with all promotions including very recent conversations with Triple H about NXT. “My goal is to legitimately surprise people and draw emotion from them. I always want to entertain the audience and keep them guessing. I’ll make a decision within the next 30 days, and it could be by next week. It all depends on how everything comes together,” Matt would say. “I am speaking with AEW, and I am very close with the Young Bucks. We’ve been great friends for a long time. They understand this business and know how to break the fourth wall and have fun with all of this. They really are special. I’ve also spoken with IMPACT and I spoke with the NWA. I had great conversations just this week with Triple H about NXT. I’m not sure where I’m going to go. From a character perspective, I want to go to an Arcadia. That’s where I can take the second coming of ‘Broken Matt’ and build upon it. I need a canvas where I can paint and collaborate.”

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE stock was at $42.70 when the stock market closed today.

Originally Posted by Fightful Changes have been made to the NXT UK announce team. The new team was revealed during Friday's NXT UK tapings in Coventry ... The NXT UK announce team now consists of Andy Shepherd and Nigel McGuinness. Shepherd is a new addition to the crew after previously working on NXT UK Kickoff shows and doing ring announcing for NXT UK. McGuinness, who also works as an announcer on NXT, has been in-and-out of the role of NXT UK announcer since the brand started. The most recent NXT UK announce team consistent of Tom Phillips and Aiden English. Taking Shepherd's role as the ring announcer is Francesca Brown. Brown has been featured in movies such as "Breathe" and "Hunter's Moon,"as well as TV series "Lookalikes" as she has a resemblance to Katy Perry.

Originally Posted by Fightful The New Day is launching a tournament to crown the greatest TV show of all time and the tournament will start on next week's episode of the "Feel The Power" podcast. You can check out the full tournament at this link.

Link: https://www.wwe.com/shows/the-new-da...ess-tv-bracket


TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE Confirms Edge’s Return on Raw This Monday

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Raw last night set a couple of new lows, but also had one of the best ratings patterns in a long time. The basic gist is that the audience was at a low point averaging 2.16 million viewers over the three hours, the lowest for a non-holiday show in modern history that didn't have a major competing sports event. The prior low in that category was 2.17 million viewers on February 3. The first hour audience of 2.16 million was also a new low for a non-holiday modern show without major sports competition, substantially lower than the previous low mark of 2.25 million on February 24. What makes it worse is that the show came the day after a pay-per-view ... Raw still took the top three spots in the 18-49 rankings ... The low first hour is a bad sign because usually after a PPV, the first hour shows a good increase and the overall episode is higher. This indicates there wasn't much interest in the Elimination Chamber follow-up. The second hour being higher than the first hour happens more frequently during Daylight Savings Time and the low first hour is because people for the next few months are more likely to start the show later ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.16 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.22 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.11 million viewers

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the surface, it’s a letdown given the week-long promotion of Edge’s return to the show for the first time since the injury angle on January 27th with Randy Orton ... It’s a trend that has been emerging over the past month where the second hour has either grown or dropped slightly with less of a third-hour tune out. That said, this week’s number had one of the lowest opening hours in the history of the show, far fewer people are tuning in, although those viewers are sticking around at a larger percentage and the show isn’t turning them off.

Originally Posted by Observer OTT Wrestling issued a statement noting that their ScrapperMania shows this weekend are currently scheduled to go on as planned. OTT asked fans not to attend if they feel unwell with coronavirus symptoms, if they’ve traveled to Ireland from an area with presumed ongoing community transmission in the last 14 days, or if in the past 14 days they have been in contact with someone who has been diagnosed with coronavirus.

Originally Posted by Observer Adam Brooks won't be making his ROH debut at Friday's 18th Anniversary pay-per-view after all. ROH has announced that -- due to travel issues -- Brooks will no longer be appearing at their 18th Anniversary PPV. Jeff Cobb is replacing Brooks and will face Slex at the show. It was confirmed last month that Brooks has signed with ROH. Him facing Slex at the Anniversary PPV was going to be a matchup between Australian wrestling standouts.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The management of wXw consisting of Tassilo Jung, Felix Kohlenberg, and Dennis Birkendahl held a press conference with members of the media this past Saturday during 16 Carat Gold weekend. The full press conference can be watched below courtesy of Headlock. wXw has always had a tremendous relationship with its media with no restrictions on the subject matter and that was clearly seen here with questions asked about David Starr ... On David Starr’s exit from the company after the Title vs. Career match with Bobby Gunns on Saturday: "We sat down together with David Starr before the show and pretty much told him after the show say whatever you would like to say. It’s your decision if it’s going to be inside the storyline universe of wXw and this promo would be included in the release or it would be a live promo that is more the person behind David Starr speaking to the people in attendance. The latter was chosen and David said whatever he liked to say, and we appreciate this and we also appreciate the kind words that he posted regarding us on Twitter and said personally to wXw and the people behind wXw and we’re going to miss him a whole lot. We will not comment on the decision itself, but I wanted to make really sure that people know how much we appreciate David Starr as a person and a talent. Obviously, you have seen that this match got set up a couple of months ago, so it was a decision that made a couple of months ago."

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q8gauPowFs

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) is the biggest story in the world and that trickles down to professional wrestling with many questions regarding its impact on upcoming shows and specifically related to WrestleMania Weekend. The industry is in a state of wait-and-see because no one can predict what the days and weeks will entail and measures that may be forced up sports and entertainment events in the United States. We have seen the impact the outbreak has had overseas with many promotions in Japan forced to cancel events or run shows inside of empty buildings. Beginning today, Major League Baseball, the NBA, NHL, and Major League Soccer are restricting media access in the club’s locker rooms as the league’s first major preventable measures. If the outbreak continues and games start being canceled, then that would represent a heightened risk that would have to apply to major promotions in the U.S. like WWE and AEW. It is hard to single out professional wrestling when it comes to the greater worldly concerns but for any promoters running WrestleMania Weekend to lose out on those shows is devastating. It makes travel arrangements difficult with so much hanging in the balance and everyone must wait to see if things get better or worse.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling In a recent SEC filing, WWE has updated Paul Levesque’s title and is now recognized as the company’s Executive Vice President of Global Talent Strategy & Development. Prior to this change, he was listed as the EVP of Talent, Live Events & Creative going back to August 2011. Levesque’s 2019 salary was listed at $706,019 in the proxy statement with an additional $502,146 in stock awards, and $2,016,977 in his performance contract that includes royalties for a total of $3,328,092. Vince McMahon’s listed salary is $1,400,000 but goes up to $3,503,703 with stock awards, and other compensations. Brandon Thurston at Wrestlenomics went through the proxy statement and noted that Shane McMahon made $2,082,011 working as a performer for the company.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The WWE stock closed at $41.19 on Tuesday.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling This Sunday night, a new episode of ‘Autopsy’ on Reelz will focus on the final hours of Chris Benoit’s life from June 2007. The network has put out the following description of Sunday’s episode that airs at 8 pm Eastern: In this investigative medical documentary series we look at the lives and deaths of the biggest names in the entertainment history. Through a combination of interviews with family and friends, archive footage and dramatic reconstructions, we tell these stories and unpick the – sometimes mysterious – circumstances around their deaths. Over a June weekend in 2007 , Canadian wrestler Chris Benoit, killed his wife and his 7-year-old son at his exclusive Georgia home before hanging himself in a horrific double murder-suicide that shocked wrestling world. At the time of his death, Chris Benoit was one of the premier athletes in the whole of World Wrestling Entertainment stable. A former World champion, he was widely regarded as one of the best technical wrestlers of his and any generation and at 40-years-old was still drawing huge audiences. So why would such an elite athlete, who had achieved so much and lived a seemingly glamorous life with his beautiful wife and child choose to kill himself and his family? This drama-documentary explores the medical factors that led to Chris Benoit’s death and investigates the tragic events that led to this tragic murder suicide.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The NWA has announced the first four teams that will take part in the Crockett Cup tournament on pay-per-view next month. On Tuesday night, the promotion revealed Brody King & Flip Gordon, Flamita & Rey Horus, The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express, and Thomas Latimer & Royce Isaacs as the first four teams to enter. They will be announcing three additional teams along with a ‘wild card’ team that will be determined in a battle royal that night. The battle royal is open to singles wrestlers and tag teams and the final two participants in the match will make up the eighth team in the Crockett Cup. On Tuesday, they announced that Tim Storm, Zicky Dice, and Ricky Starks would be part of the battle royal.

Originally Posted by Fightful Authors of Pain member Rezar suffered an arm injury during the main event of WWE Raw. Fightful Select reports that Rezar tagged out of the match and informed Seth Rollins of the injury before staying on the sidelines for the majority of the match. Rezar did get involved in the post-match angle. It has not been confirmed the extent of Rezar's injury.

Originally Posted by Fightful When it comes to Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart did not hold back when asked about his opinion. During a live Q & A session, Hart was asked about his opinion on The Hulkster and if he likes him. Needless to say, Hart responded by calling Hogan a "piece of sh*t." "Do I like Hulk Hogan? No, I don't. I think he is a phony piece of sh*t," Hart said

Link: https://twitter.com/FightfulWrestle/...34596443496455

Originally Posted by Observer Snickers is again partnering with WWE for this year's WrestleMania. WWE and Mars, Incorporated have announced "an expansion of their long-standing partnership for 2020 in which Snickers will once again serve as the exclusive presenting partner of WrestleMania." This is the fifth straight year that Snickers has been the presenting sponsor for the event. The partnership will include WWE wrestlers taking part in Snickers' new "Fix the World" ad campaign. There will be three custom commercials produced. The first will air on the March 23 episode of Raw, the second will air on the March 27 episode of SmackDown, and the third will air during WrestleMania 36.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: SmackDown Women’s Title Match Rumor, Ruthless Aggression, Updated SD Ratings
• WWE Reportedly Blacklists Outspoken Pro-Union Wrestler David Starr
• Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against WWE Over Saudi Arabia Deal Issues
• Nia Jax Cleared to Return, May Be at SmackDown
• Paige and Jeff Hardy Set to Return on SmackDown

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Originally Posted by PWI Tampa, Florida Mayor Jane Castor was interviewed this afternoon by Drew Garabo on 102.5 The Bone FM in Tampa, Florida about the city's response to the coronavirus and how they would be handling large scale public events in the city, including next month's Wrestlemania 36 week. Castor was immediately asked about Wrestlemania 36 and whether the events that week will still take place. Castor said they are still assessing the situation. They hoped to still hold it but they are still assessing. They have a commission working on it and will be having a meeting tomorrow at 12 PM Noon to determine what they will do regarding the status of not just Wrestlemania, but all other large scale events in the city. Castor said they anticipated they would have coronavirus cases in Tampa. The virus in most cases is like a mild case of the flu. The issue is the ease of the transmission. It's not if, but when it hit their city. They want people to have accurate information and to take steps to protect themselves and they'll be able to prevent the spread of the virus across Tampa and the country ... On balancing the health and well being vs. the economic windfall of Wrestlemania, Castor said the health and well being is important but she also has to look at the economic impact for those who need the paychecks that come with the economic positives of having a major event. It's a responsibility she takes seriously. When asked who's final decision it would be, Castor said WWE can 'weigh in' but they locally would have the final call. That's why they are having the meeting tomorrow, so they can make the best informed decision and be on top of the latest information from the CDC and the State of Florida.

Originally Posted by PWI We've been asked how WWE is preparing for the coronavirus in terms of their office staffing. We have been told by multiple sources that work for the company that as of this week, WWE started a rotation where certain departments will be working from home/telecommuting so that WWE can plan out logistics if they need to pull the trigger on having the company's employees work outside of their Stamford, CT headquarters. The process will likely continue over at least the next week or so. A number of film studios and major corporations are enacting similar measures. In regard to a rumor making the round, there is ZERO truth to a story claiming Wrestlemania would be bumped up to Madison Square Garden on 3/22.

Originally Posted by Fightful Jerry Lawler thinks the show will go on. Appearing on Cerrito Live, Jerry Lawler was asked about the coronavirus and whether the disease will impact WrestleMania 36. "I don't think it's going to affect WrestleMania at all. I'm not trying to downplay it but when you listen to what has happened in the past, it's almost like a cycle. These kind of things happen every now and again; there's nothing you can do about it except react to it as best we can. I remember all these kinds of influenza and viruses that we've had. Just the regular flu comes around every year and kills a bunch of people. You can get vaccinated and do you what you can; everyone tries to be as healthy as possible. It's just a fact of life. Remember there was the Bird Flu, the Hong Kong Flu, Swine Flu, SARS. All of these things happen every few years and this is another one of those things that we'll get through. That's the way life is." He finished by saying, "WrestleMania could go on and it could be a total pay-per-view [empty arena] if worst came to worst."

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc It's looking more like the coronavirus will end up having a significant impact on WrestleMania 36 Week in Tampa, Florida. Tampa area reporter Jon Alba noted on Twitter today that there could be an update on the status of WrestleMania 36 within the next 24 hours, which may not be good for WWE. "I do believe we will hear an update on the status of #WrestleMania within 24 hours or so. And I would suspect things aren't trending in a positive direction. #WWE," Alba tweeted. Furthermore, @Wrestlevotes also indicated today that things aren't looking good ... "I asked a few sources about Mania & the Corona situation. Some had no info to relay. One said: 'if it can go on as planned, it will' Safe to say WWE just doesn't know yet. All very fluid. All TBD," they wrote earlier this afternoon. "Update: It's not looking good now," @Wrestlevotes wrote in a follow-up tweet this evening. They continued, "Guys, I want it to still happen too. Trust me. But it's not looking good at the moment. I would think they look to reschedule rather than cancel but time will tell." As noted earlier today at this link, the City of Tampa Twitter account and the Visit Tampa Bay Twitter account told fans that WrestleMania 36 is currently scheduled to go on as planned. The World Health Organization announced today that the coronavirus outbreak is now a pandemic.

Originally Posted by PWI The 3/10 episode of WWE Backstage on FS1, featuring Mark Henry appearing, brought in 35,000 overnight viewers. If we receive an updated, final number, we will update.

Originally Posted by Observer John Cena's next appearance on WWE television is taking place this Friday. WWE has announced that Cena will appear on SmackDown this Friday night. The show is taking place at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, Michigan

Originally Posted by Observer Matt Hardy is heading to Northeast Wrestling for his first announced post-WWE match. Northeast Wrestling announced today that Hardy will be in action at their Wrestlefest XXIV show later this month: "Matt Hardy returns to Northeast Wrestling for his 1st match since becoming the most sought after Free Agent in Wrestling. Northeast Wrestling LIVE! in Waterbury, Connecticut on Friday, March 27th. He will also be a part of the preshow Meet and Greet. Get your tickets now at northeastwrestling.com" Hardy's opponent for the show has yet to be revealed.

Originally Posted by Observer KENTA and Tomohiro Ishii are the first two NJPW wrestlers confirmed for this year's ROH-NJPW War of the Worlds tour. ROH announced today that KENTA and Ishii are set for all four shows on the War of the Worlds tour. The dates and locations for it are: Wednesday, May 6: Buffalo RiverWorks, Buffalo, New York Thursday, May 7: Ted Reeve Arena, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Saturday, May 9: Wings Event Center, Kalamazoo, Michigan Sunday, May 10: The Odeum Expo Center, Villa Park, Illinois

Originally Posted by Observer NJPW has revealed when tickets are going on sale for their return to Madison Square Garden. A ticket pre-sale for NJPW Wrestle Dynasty will begin at 10 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, April 8. Registration is now open for the pre-sale mailing list. NJPW wrote that codes will be emailed near the pre-sale date. Tickets will then go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. Eastern on Friday, April 10 ... Wrestle Dynasty is taking place at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, August 22, which is the same night as NXT TakeOver: Boston and the night before this year's SummerSlam.

Originally Posted by PWI Ring of Honor issued the following statement: ROH UPDATE ON COVID-19 Ring of Honor, home of the “Best Wrestling on the Planet,” will be proceeding as planned with all current events and activities. ROH is mounting its 18th Anniversary (Friday, March 13th) and Past vs Present (Saturday, March 14th) shows this weekend in Las Vegas at Sam’s Town Live Casino. The safety and health of our fans, talents and staff are always of top priority and we are actively following information regarding COVID-19, known as Coronavirus. We are closely monitoring all information being made known by the government, the CDC and WHO to the public - as the situation continues to develop. ROH cares by being proactive in taking the utmost safety precautions as recommended for all live events and recommends that all fans take their own personal safety precautions as well. Additionally, fans are urged to contact help@rohwrestling.com if they have any concerns about their health or safety at an upcoming event -- and ROH will work with them to provide solutions. As the situation continues to be monitored, any necessary changes to the event schedule and/or resolutions will be provided expeditiously.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The Collective and Game Changer Wrestling put out a statement on Twitter which read that all of their scheduled events for WrestleMania weekend will continue on as planned regardless of the decision that is made tomorrow concerning WrestleMania.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE’s Angel Garza drew coverage from TMZ after he was kissed by a fan in attendance at Monday Night RAW in Washington DC. After Garza’s segment and match, he responded to a tweet which read that the Coronavirus is everywhere and what he allowed was not safe. Garza responded to the tweet and noted that the Coronavirus does not exist and everything is in people’s minds.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Sports Illustrated chatted with Bret Hart to reflect on the life and career of Owen Hart. The two parties specifically talked about Bret and Owen’s WrestleMania 10 match and Bret feels that-that match set the table for wrestlers like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk who are/were of similar stature to Bret and Owen. “I think it certainly opened the door for guys, like Punk and Daniel Bryan, that did some great wrestling after my era. For our time, Owen and I was a great match. The hardest thing about the match with Owen that people overlook is that we’d never wrestled each other before. When you’ve never danced with someone before, you don’t know what you’re going to get. For our first match, that was a really good match.” Elsewhere in the interview, Hart shared that the majority of the finishes to his matches were his idea and the only one he can recall that wasn’t his was the WWF World Heavyweight Championship match against Bob Backlund at the 1994 Survivor Series. “All the endings to my matches were mine. The only match I can think of, off the top of my head, that the finish was done the way I was told was probably that Survivor Series where I lost to Backlund. But that whole match was my match. It was a very complicated match. Vince laid the outline, and then was like, ‘Figure it out. This is how it’s going to happen.’ It had the towel and all that. Every single person’s timing was so important to the other wrestlers. There’s Davey Boy, my mom, my dad, Owen, Bob Backlund, myself. A lot of moving pieces. That’s what I love about that match as you watch it back. That was a complicated story to tell but it was smooth as butter, first time we ever did it, last time we ever did, and a great moment.”

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE's stock finished at $38.72 per share when the stock market closed.

Growing coronavirus worries and uncertainty over the direction of WWE has hammered their stocks big time in recent weeks.


TPWW Frontpage:

• Rob Gronkowski Update – Will Be an “Active Wrestler” & Appear at WrestleMania
• XFL Ratings for Week 5 Games

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Originally Posted by Observer On a night where most of the viewing audience was concerned with a lot other than professional wrestling, both Wednesday night shows took a ratings hit. AEW Dynamite averaged 766,000 viewers on TNT, down 15 percent from last week. In the 18-49 demo, the show was down over 25 percent, averaging just a 0.26 rating. That's AEW's second lowest number ever in that category, nearly matching the 0.25 the show did on December 18. NXT was down just 2.9 percent, averaging 697,000 viewers. In 18-49, the show averaged a 0.21 rating, down 8.7 percent from last week. That's NXT's lowest number in that category since January 15. Dynamite ranked 25th on cable in 18-49, while NXT was 42nd. Both were well lower than usual and the shows were obviously hit hardest in the 18-49 demo. News shows were way up and Donald Trump's presidential address to the nation aired directly opposite both AEW and NXT.

Originally Posted by PWI STARDOM announced today that the 3/29/20 event in Nagoya has been canceled. As of now, the 3/24/20 show at Korakuen Hall and the 3/28/20 event in Shizuoka will still go but they are not selling additional reservation tickets for those dates. The Korakuen Hall show is the Cinderella Tournament 2020.

Originally Posted by PWI It was widely expected that WWE and/or the government in Tampa, FL would make an announcement today regarding whether WrestleMania will take place a little over three weeks from now. There was even a press conference where the subject was broached, and botched. Badly in fact. It was announced by Hillsbough County official, Lesley "Les" Miller, Jr. that WWE had held a press conference earlier in the day concerning their biggest event of the year. Of course, that was not the case. So, at the end of their press conference, they said there was still time to decide the event’s fate and if no decision has been made by next week, they will address the subject again. Folks, this is just a different form of stupid. It really is. No matter how you feel about COVID-19 and its spread in the US, the fact of the matter is there are now so many reasons that WWE should just go ahead and cancel the show. Each day that they don’t, they look more and more out of touch as to what is going on in the world today ... Well, as much as we know the Vince McMahon mentality of “The Show Must Go On”, which he made crystal clear by continuing the Over The Edge PPV in 1999 when Owen Hart died in front of the crowd and yet he continued the PPV, the answer to the question of “for what” is probably money. Insurance money. It could well be that if WWE cancels, they don’t get paid. If the show is canceled by the city of Tampa, then they do. If that is the case then make a deal with the city of Tampa to bring the show back in June, or whenever you can do it. Maybe it’s November this year. Whatever, just make the deal. The Governor of Florida is already saying he doesn’t want large gatherings in the state, but it’s out of his control. But this situation will not get better in three weeks. If you look at the arc in the countries that have preceded us with this virus, we probably have at least six weeks until we start going on the downward side of the curve. And that’s if we get lucky ... But, they could win the war of perception. With all of the sporting events going dark, WWE has a golden opportunity to get eyeballs on their product. Even if they have to relocate their TV to the Performance Center, which may be a very real possibility, they will still be able to provide seven hours of sports-like TV a week for viewers who have very few other choices. Will those people want to support a company that couldn’t get out of its own way and move WrestleMania, clearly not thinking about the safety of its fans over their own bottom line? Why take the chance? Even if the show does take place, it will now be in front of a far less than full stadium anyway, making your signature event look second rate. Do the right thing and postpone WrestleMania WWE and do it now, while it’s your decision and it’s not forced on you.

PWI's Dave Scherer had a very interesting take when it came to today's lack of a real announcement by the city of Tampa and WWE regarding the status of WrestleMania 36.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE’s current situation in regards to WrestleMania’s status is complex and part of the reason for it has to do with insurance. On a recent episode of Fightful’s “List & Ya Boy” podcast, Fightful owner Jimmy Van spoke on the ramifications WWE could face by canceling WrestleMania. The economic effect of canceling the show would largely depend on the type of insurance WWE has for WrestleMania and whether or not the city of Tampa ordered WWE to cancel it. If there was a recommendation, and not an order, from the city to postpone or cancel the show and WWE followed through, the company may not be able to recover some of the financial losses that come with such a decision because of the insurance. “The answer comes down to insurance coverage. In pro sports, most leagues opt to pay for premium coverage called communicable disease-related losses. If a pro league acts on the recommendation to cancel as opposed to the order to cancel, they may not be able to trigger coverage, that they may not be able to recoup losses through insurance. That’s what we first saw in Ohio. They recommended canceling events and the Columbus Blue Jackets came out and said they are going to go on as planned. It was because of insurance. But now, Ohio has come out and said, ‘We’re ordering you to do this,'" Van said. Although what kind of insurance WWE has is unknown, one can surmise that it is a setup similar to those pro leagues. As far as what he believes will happen, Van thinks WWE will do WrestleMania if the city of Tampa issues a recommendation and not an order to cancel or postpone.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE released the trailer for their forthcoming Quibi series "Fight Like A Girl" in advance of that digital platform's launch: Confidence. Focus. Inner strength.@WWE Superstars show the world what it means to #FightLikeAGirl this April, only on @Quibi. ???? pic.twitter.com/FO4B40VolM — WWE (@WWE) March 12, 2020

Link: https://twitter.com/WWE/status/1238102711725436929

Originally Posted by PWI WWE bussed in the fans attending last night's WWE NXT at the Performance Center from Full Sail University. The Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa brawl was shot live as it happened in the Performance Center and was not a pre-taped segment.

Originally Posted by PWI For those who have asked, Major League Wrestling's staff and talent are already in Southern California or Tijuana, Mexico for the MLW vs. AAA event tomorrow in Mexico. Talent have been advised that even though they are in Mexico, if they do not feel comfortable performing, they do not have to perform. As of now, that event is still on as there have not been any cancellations in Mexico due to the coronavirus. MLW's offices in the New Rochelle, NY area are near the current coronavirus containment zone but not within it. MLW advised all office staff to take this past Monday off and not come into the office as the area schools are all closed and MLW wanted staff to remain with their families. No upcoming MLW events are postponed or canceled, although given the way of the world this week, that could change ... MLW had planned on announcing autograph signings with talents in Tampa over Wrestlemania week today but those plans are off due to concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. Several MLW talents who were slated to head to Japan for international dates have had those plans canceled, obviously, due to the coronavirus.

Originally Posted by PWI FOX 29 in Philadelphia is reporting the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, which housed last week's Elimination Chamber PPV, is closed to all but essential employees due to the coronavirus outbreak. A country music concert slated for the venue tonight will be postponed.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Booker T took to Twitter and announced that Reality Of Wrestling’s ‘No Limits’ show that was scheduled for March 14th has been postponed due to the Coronavirus. The event is being rescheduled for April 11th and if tickets were purchased for the March 14th show, those tickets can be used to get into the April 11th event. Reality of Wrestling’s ‘Stars Of Tomorrow’ show on March 28th is still scheduled to continue as planned, barring any changes. DEFY Wrestling was also forced to cancel their March 29th show.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Ring of Honor cancelled a meet and greet session today in Las Vegas. Marty Scurll and PCO were scheduled to be the focuses of those meet and greet but with the Coronavirus outbreak, ROH did want to take any risks. ROH also announced that at ‘Pure Excellence’ on April 11th, La Faccion Ingobernable (RUSH, Dragon Lee & Kenny King) are taking on ROH World Six-Man Tag Team Champions Bandido, Flamita and Rey Horus.

Originally Posted by Fightful Wrestlecon is one of the major conventions associated with WrestleMania 36 in Tampa, Florida. As the world continues to monitor the Coronavirus, the status of Wrestlecon has received an update. The convention, which has events attached to it such as the IMPACT Wrestling’s special TNA revival event, TNA: There’s No Place Like Home, and is set to feature a super show of their own with superstars such as Bandido, Zack Sabre Jr., Low-Ki, and more, has said in an update on Twitter that the status of the event is up in the air and is all dependent on whether or not WrestleMania 36 takes place.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE's stock took another massive tumble. When the stock market closed on the afternoon of March 12, the company's stock price finished at $32.38 per share, down 16.11 percent from when WWE's stock closed at $38.60 per share on March 11. This is the lowest the stock has ever been since January 12, 2018 when it sat at $32.18 per share. WWE, as well as the world of pro wrestling and sports, has been rocked by the coronavirus outbreak, putting WrestleMania 36 at risk of being canceled or postponed. Although no decision has been made in regards to the show's status, with it still currently taking place on April 5 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa ... WWE then released a statement saying that the company's finances could be impacted by the coronavirus and has withdrawn any previously-mentioned projections and guidance for 2020 due to the uncertainty of the coronavirus' long-term effect business-wise.

TPWW Frontpage:

• The City of Tampa Is Not Canceling WrestleMania… For Now
• WWE Releases Statement on WrestleMania 36
• Coronavirus Updates: WWE, AEW, ROH, OTT, GCW, WrestleCon, wXw, Evolve, PWG, CWH
• The XFL Suspends Its Season
• AEW Officially Announces Next Two Weeks of Dynamite Will Be Relocated
• Friday’s SmackDown Officially Moved to the WWE Performance Center
• Dr. Luther Signs AEW Contract

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The spreading of the coronavirus has the entire sports, entertainment, travel and tourism economies in at least short-term jeopardy, along with the far more serious aspects of a rapidly-spreading disease that will seemingly greatly affect all of our lives in some form ... At press time, no decision has been made regarding WrestleMania and the activities of that week, which affects not only WWE but is a key part of the annual income for companies that piggy-back off WWE’s biggest show, whether it be for live events or fan gatherings. Tampa, the home of WrestleMania, had as of 3/11, three cases of the virus diagnosed. WrestleMania, like all major events of this type around the country, is clearly in some jeopardy although one WWE official told us that there will be a WrestleMania in some form ... While companies in almost all industries in some form will feel a major effect from this, in the sports industries, the major leagues that have great television deals and don’t have to rely on the live gate will survive with less pain. In particular, both WWE and UFC, with their large profit margins will be able to ride this out far better than almost anyone else. New Japan, which relies on live gates and merchandise for the majority of its annual income, and has canceled all its events since 2/26, will take a much harder hit. For smaller companies with far less cushion, it could be disastrous, and that is not just entertainment companies but regular businesses as well ... There are no official returns but New Japan canceled the rest of the New Japan Cup tournament events, through 3/21. The Japanese government had told all major sports and entertainment companies not to run shows with spectators at least through 3/25. With the exception of Big Japan, which ignored the directive, no major company is running spectator events, although Stardom and DDT have run empty arena shows ... While not talked about, the promotion that may face the most danger from this is CMLL, because a huge percentage of its audience are tourists. If people stop going to Mexico City, that will severely cut back their live business and their business is largely based on big Friday night crowds and Sunday and Tuesday events at Arena Mexico. Its wrestlers, who are mostly still paid on the house, will also be affected greatly if that happens ... Lots of independent promotions don’t have insurance so this could hurt that business greatly. Plus there will be a huge amount of damage to the insurance business.

For WWE, it looks like he Walter vs. Finn Balor match at the planned NXT Takeover show on 4/4 is off, if the show even happens. One of the travel ramifications is that if a non-U.S. citizen or resident has been to EU’s Schengen area (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland) in the past 14 days, they can’t come to the U.S. regardless of the airport they are flying into. So anyone who was in Germany last week, which includes Walter and Alexander Wolfe, wouldn’t be allowed in, unless somehow they find a way around those regulations. Black Taurus and Daniel Makabe, who are still in Europe, could also have issues getting into the U.S. Bandido and Puma King, who I believe are not U.S. citizens, returned from Germany before the travel ban. All fans who attended the 16 Carat Gold tournament this past weekend would not be allowed to attend WrestleMania week if it goes on as scheduled. Because of this, it is impossible for wXw to get talent into the U.S. right now and its show over WrestleMania week has been canceled.

Due to pressure from WWE, David Starr (Max Barsky, 29), who was in many people’s eyes the most valuable wrestler on the European scene this past year, is now out of both Progress and wXw, companies where he was one of the most pushed stars. According to those close to the situation, the WWE pressure will not affect his standing with OTT out of Ireland, where he is the current world champion. Starr had quietly not been booked by Progress since the end of last year, and his name also stopped being mentioned in any commentary of the shows on their streaming service. But the situation became public on 3/7 when Starr lost a match to wXw champion Bobby Gunns in a career in wXw vs. title match that he was assumed to be winning ... Starr and wXw management made the decision, which from all accounts neither wanted to make, due to pressure from WWE. Neither side wanted to publicly discuss the situation with Starr saying he didn’t want to talk about it because he really loves wXw so much ... This is the first time we’re aware of that WWE has pressured companies not to use talent that wasn’t with a rival promotion like AEW. While the reasons were the same, the belief from Progress is that they were not that unhappy regarding the pressure to no longer use him, and with that, he wasn’t that unhappy about no longer working there. But Starr and wXw did not want to stop working together. The belief is that WWE pressured the companies that they have working agreements with to no longer use Starr was because of his pro-union voice and attempts in the U.K. to get wrestlers to join the Equity union, the trade union for performers, similar to SAG in the U.S. Thus far, two promotions, Eve and Riot Cabaret, have agreed to adopt the Equity union’s negotiated code of conduct policy ... He’s been critical of WWE calling its employees independent contractors and of Sinclair Broadcasting politics ... The belief is that WWE made the calls in December, at which point Progress had him lose to Eddie Dennis and Jimmy Havoc on the way out. This came after Progress had put him over in their Strong Style 16 tournament. The key is that WWE did not pressure Progress to no longer use Havoc, even though he’s an AEW wrestler. The December date would be before Starr and Gabe Sapolsky went back-and-forth on Twitter, with Starr talking about Evolve using some wrestlers who work for free based on getting exposure or that Evolve doesn’t pay wrestlers well that it has under contract. Those close to the situation also discount Starr stomping on Walter’s NXT UK championship belt while doing an angle, although the belief is that it added fuel to the fire of WWE encouraging people not to book him and push him any longer. This happened on an OTT show last summer, and OTT had claimed the spot was something Starr did on his own and not something planned. Clearly WWE and wXw reached an agreement to allow them to write Starr out in a career vs. title program rather than just stop using him.

As far as WrestleMania goes, there have been only two key changes in the past week, both involving women. The women’s tag title match at press time is now a three-way with the Kabuki Warriors defending against both Beth Phoenix & Natalya and Nikki Cross & Alexa Bliss. The Smackdown women’s title match went through different forms and discussions including talk of Bayley vs. Sasha Banks and shooting an angle with them. Eventually that is still the plan, but wasn’t until later in the year. As of two weeks ago it was to be Bayley vs. Naomi, but now it’s a six-way with Bayley, Banks, Naomi, Lacey Evans, Carmella and one more name which wasn’t finalized. Mandy Rose in some form is supposed to be involved in the Otis vs. Dolph Ziggler match. Zayn and Strowman are likely to be in the IC title match, although in what form isn’t known. There are also both Raw and Smackdown tag team titles and the U.S. title in play. Most of the top pushed stars are accounted for other than Sheamus, King Corbin and Daniel Bryan. Although they still need some talent for both the men’s and women’s Battle Royal.

WWE Smackdown on 3/6 did 2,456,000 viewers and a 0.7 in 18-49. It was down 8.6 percent in viewers over the high mark the week before from John Cena’s appearance ... Last year on the same Friday night FOX averaged 3,242,000 viewers and 0.63 in 18-49, so down 24.2 percent in viewers and up 11.1 percent in 18-49.

Due to the news, pro wrestling took a hit on 3/11, although for whatever reason news coverage far more greatly affected AEW than NXT. This probably says something about the divergence in both audiences but I’m not exactly sure what, but it’s very evident ... AEW did 766,000 viewers and a 0.26 in 18-49, a drop of 15.5 percent in viewers and 25.7 percent in 18-49. NXT did 697,000 viewers and a 0.21 in 18-49, drops of just 2.9 percent in viewers and 8.7 percent in 18-49. At press time no rating for Miz & Mrs. was available because it was not in the top 150 for the night. AEW was 25th for the night in the demo, trailing nine entertainment shows and the rest either news or basketball (which was huge in the news) related ... NXT was 42nd in the demo for the night. AEW’s losses were all younger viewers. The show did a 0.11 in 12-17 (down 31.3 percent), 0.18 in 18-34 (down 25.0 percent), 0.34 in 35-49 (down 26.1 percent) and 0.33 in 50+ (down 2.9 percent) ... NXT wasn’t hurt at all in any age group but 18-34. It did a 0.10 in 12-17 (same as last week), 0.12 in 18-34 (down 25.0 percent), 0.30 in 35-49 (same as last week) and 0.34 in 50+ (same as last week).

Some additional ratings notes regarding the 3/4 television shows ... The head-to-head numbers, removing the overrun, were 906,000 to 709,000 ... However, the Roderick Strong vs. Velveteen Dream cage match did grow a record 271,000 new viewers overall and 93,000 in 18-49 as soon as AEW ended. AEW won all eight quarters and only in the second quarter was the gap less than 100,000 viewers and for the last 30 minutes the gap was more than 300,000. The show started with AEW with 902,000 viewers and 435,000 in 18-49 for the Jon Moxley/Inner Circle talk. NXT did 782,000 viewers and 321,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of the Dakota Kai vs. Tegan Nox cage match. In the second quarter, AEW had Colt Cabana & Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian & Scorpio Sky vs. Stu Grayson & Evil Uno & John Silver & Alex Reynolds and lost 23,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49. NXT had the ending of the cage match, a Finn Balor promo and a feature on Rhea Ripley at Raymond James Stadium, and gained 14,000 viewers and gained 20,000 in 18-49. In the third quarter, AEW had the end of the eight-man tag, and a piece of the tag title match from Revolution and lost 37,000 viewers and 17,000 in 18-49. NXT had Shotzi Blackheart vs. Chelsea Green and a Keith Lee-Cameron Grimes promo segment, and lost 40,000 viewers and 11,000 in 18-49. In the fourth quarter, AEW had the Cody-Jake Roberts segment which lost 19,000 viewers and 12,000 in 18-49 ... NXT had Austin Theory vs. Isaiah Scott angle and the beginning of Kyle O’Reilly & Bobby Fish vs. Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch, and it lost 99,000 viewers 47,000 in 18-49. In the fifth quarter, AEW had Pac vs. Chuck Taylor and post-match stuff that included Cody, Matt Jackson, Pentagon, Fenix, Orange Cassidy and Adam Page, and gained 100,000 viewers and 45,000 in 18-49. NXT had the rest of Fish & O’Reilly vs. Lorcan & Burch and the attack by the Grizzled Young Vets on Matt Riddle & Pete Dunne, which gained 47,000 viewers and 21,000 in 18-49. In the sixth quarter, AEW had QT Marshall vs. Jake Hager and the post-match angle there and a video package promoting the main event and gained 26,000 viewers and 55,000 in 18-49. NXT with Isaiah Scott vs. Austin Theory lost 4,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49. In the seventh quarter, AEW had the beginning of Jericho & Sammy Guevara vs. Darby Allin and the rest of the Inner Circle beating down Jon Moxley, and lost 13,000 viewers but gained 2,000 in18-49. NXT had the Mauro Ranallo interview with Johnny Gargano and promotion of the second cage match and lost 77,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49. In the final quarter, AEW with the rest of Jericho & Guevara vs. Allin plus another beatdown of Jon Moxley, they gained 56,000 viewers and 30,000 in 18-49. NXT with Velveteen Dream vs. Roderick Strong in a cage gained 30,000 viewers and 27,000 in 18-49. In that quarter, AEW had 992,000 viewers and 524,000 in 18-49, its peak in both categories for th e show. NXT had its second lowest quarter, with 653,000 viewers and 284,000 in 18-49.

WWE is still in talks with people regarding a PPV deal. They’ve announced WrestleMania as being on the network which would indicate the belief they aren’t close enough on the deal to not make that announcement. The only thing we’ve heard is WWE is seeking a very high number for the deal

After Wilson and Barrios were fired, people in the company continually hinted that something almost as big was being kept quiet that happened in December but said it would have to come out when the company made it clear. The company never made it clear, but a recent SEC filing when giving Levesque’s new title essentially opened the door for questions. Levesque was the head of talent relations, his main job, but also oversaw many other departments in his role as EVP of Talent, Live Events and Creative. So he was moved away from being in charge of talent and his main duties are now NXT, selling NXT TV rights overseas and expanding NXT globally. Brad Blum, Vince McMahon’s Chief of Staff, took over Levesque’s other duties as Executive Vice President of Operations, overseeing the divisions Levesque was formerly overseeing. It’s a change. There are those internally and externally who have called it a quiet demotion. The labeling of his new title gives the impression that he’s the guy negotiating with talent, but that is one of the things he was removed from doing. Mark Carrano no longer reports to Levesque and now reports to Blum. Either way, it is curious that this was kept quiet for nearly four months

There was a photo that surfaced this past week of Ronda Rousey and Cain Velasquez which led to rumors Rousey was going to be back for WrestleMania. What we were told is that, simply by coincidence, both were at the office at the same time, saw each other and got a photo together and then Velasquez tweeted it out for the world to see. Both were in Stamford for meetings with WWE on a number of items. Lots of talent is being brought in for meetings with multiple departments as there has been a lot of corporate shifting around and changes made back in December. That said, that photo caused quite the stir in the office as whatever the plan are for Rousey, her being in the office was supposed to be top secret to the point nobody was supposed to know but a few people, and that includes key people in the company as it was supposed to be that hush-hush. It was said by one person that Vince McMahon was freaking out badly over it knowing he couldn’t fire the “leaker” since it was Velasquez who didn’t know any better, but another said that was overblown and people were more laughing about it than freaking out about it

This has quietly gone without much notice, because nobody pays attention to 205 Live. But after all these years, WWE is now taping 205 Live first, before Smackdown, and starting its East Coast shows at 7:15 p.m. They are taping usually two matches, cutting the time back on 205 Live, and then taping Smackdown, and doing one dark match main event after the show. This always should have been the case, because 205 Live has played to dead crowds for the most part for a long time. The problem is now the show has been so devalued that while people no longer leave during the show like in the past, the matches still aren’t getting much heat

Regarding Matt Hardy, the Freeing the Delete video, according to an interview he did with PW Insider, had in his mind three different possible endings. One would have involved Undertaker, one with Bray Wyatt and the third with the Young Bucks. He said that when he started the series he was expecting to end up in WWE. He said they talked but he knows at 45 that his time in the business isn’t long as an active competitor and he also needs a minimal in-ring schedule. Basically he said he left on good terms but they had him slotted at a certain level and it ended the way it did. He noted that WWE had talked with him about doing more episodes of House Hardy for the WWE Network as late as January but the trigger was never pulled because they didn’t want to film a show and not know where his creative was going so that the character he played would be obsolete before it would air. That also may have been the impetus in the sense they wouldn’t do the show without him signing a new deal. He also talked of an idea he must have pitched to Smackdown where he’d head a stable of some of the more underutilized guys there like Gable and Crews. He said that as of the weekend he was still a free agent. But the reality is it would be quite the swerve on the Young Bucks to have them show up in his video and then him go elsewhere. I do know that this past week everyone expected him to end up in AEW, and really has for some time. He said that it was talked to him about taking the Orton thing further and him coming back for revenge, but again, that would have meant him signing a new deal. And both angles on Raw were meant as him being written off and not written for he and Orton to go forward. The first was the farewell but the decision was then made because the first popped a quarter and was well received, that he still had time on his deal and they could do it again. It was absolutely meant as a burial on the way out and quite frankly, couldn’t have been stronger, but the reality is those things don’t work today in burying like in another era because fans see things much differently

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Friday News Edition):

Originally Posted by Observer The wrestling world continues to react to the coronavirus outbreak and the large gathering bans happening around the United States. NXT Friday's show in Venice, Florida, was canceled as Sarasota County canceled all public events. That news was not formally announced by their or WWE's Twitter account as of this writing. Saturday's show in Daytona, Florida, at the Midtown Cultural & Educational Center was also canceled by the mayor. However, you can still buy tickets on Ticketmaster as of this wriing, nor has WWE or NXT officially announced it. Other Shows The Bullet Club Beach Party set for Mania week in Tampa, FL, has been canceled. The Kevin Owens Inside The Ropes One Night Only event has been rescheduled for June 5th in Glasgow, Scotland. The EVOLVE March 27-29 Recruitment Camp in Port Richey, FL, is still happening as scheduled.

Originally Posted by PWI Full Sail University, the home of WWE NXT's weekly broadcasts, announced today that they are shutting down all classes, labs and "group events" going forward due to the coronavirus outbreak, which was declared a National Emergency today in the United States. NXT's live Wednesday night tapings at Full Sail Live are also suspended. PWInsider.com has confirmed that going forward, NXT will be broadcasting out of the WWE Performance Center, as it did this past week due to a conflict that prevented them from running Full Sail. While WWE did bring in three bus-loads of fans for this past week's taping, it is not likely they would do that for additional tapings at the PC, instead taping with no fans present and only "essential" personnel in house. The plan is to return to Full Sail when that is feasible.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE is proceeding with Friday Night SmackDown at its new location at the WWE Performance Center tonight with no fans in attendance ... It is going to be a very strange show beyond the empty arena, the company must move ahead with the build toward WrestleMania even though that event must be in question. Given the lengths that many sports leagues have taken, WWE hasn’t come off well with their aversion to acknowledging reality and the potential health risks for its talent. For the performers, the idea of traveling across the country in this climate – even for empty arena shows – must be worrisome on top of their given line of work coming into close contact with others as a requisite job requirement. If it gets to a point where one performer tests positive for the virus, it will virtually shut down the ability to do shows as it would affect the locker room that would need to be tested and quarantined as we have seen in the NBA with two positive cases. We are not talking about an era in the company where you didn’t get paid if you didn’t work and while talent will take a degree of a hit without live events, it isn’t like they won’t be paid and would probably put themselves and their families at ease being home and not traveling the country and potentially bringing a virus back to them. I don’t envy the decision-makers and some leeway should be provided but there comes a point where you must watch the example set by other competing sports leagues and franchises. It is not to say WWE couldn’t continue to produce programming for the USA Network and Fox during a down period from outside the ring content, a ‘broadcast premiere’ of last year’s WrestleMania, a sit-down interview with Vince McMahon and other key figures addressing the crisis. A decision regarding WrestleMania should have been made this week as delaying the decision only causes more anxiety for those reliant on the show happening. It appears that neither WWE nor the City of Tampa wants to be the ones to tell fans that Christmas is canceled but Santa can’t make any toys if he’s sick. There are also the financial implications that need to be explored of who is on the hook for what costs if they pull the plug, but one side needs to take the reigns on this. I truly empathize with the countless independent promoters and wrestlers that have so much riding on this week of shows happening. They are in a painful limbo as they await the dominoes to fall and rides on whether WWE proceeds ahead. Frankly, that decision may be taken away from WWE and a ruling is made that it just cannot happen.

Post Wrestling's John Pollock had an interesting take on WWE's handling of the coronavirus situation in general. In regards to his idea of WWE doing "out of the ring" content for USA Network, TNT did that for their first Inside The NBA show following the NBA season's postponement where it was just interviews and discussion about the virus and its impact on the league.

Originally Posted by PWI Major League Wrestling's combined event in partnership with AAA tonight in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, the AAA vs. MLW Super Series at Auditorio Fausto Gutierrez will go on as scheduled, but without a pretty major person. MLW owner Court Bauer will be missing his first ever MLW show as he's been in the middle of negotiating what we are told is "high level TV talks" and has been back and forth between LA and NYC working on a deal. In his absence, Konnan and Mr Saint Laurent (head of MLW Talent Relations) will be running the show with Bauer communicating via Facetime. We are told MLW has enough content in the can already that after tonight's taping, they expect to be able to continue to deliver new episodes to BeIN Sport weekly without a problem. Given the way things are going with the coronavirus outbreak, MLW is mapping out numerous contingency plans ranging from the next six weeks to the next six months, attempting to plan ahead.

Originally Posted by PWI Roman Reigns liked a tweet from a fan who showed concern for his compromised immune system due to his battle with leukemia and performing at WrestleMania Dear @WWERomanReigns, Please take extra precautions and sit out WrestleMania if you have to. As a cancer survivor, you are already likely to have a compromised immune system. ???????? Sincerely, A concerned fan ???????? — ????J0SE (@JoseCienAlmas) March 12, 2020

Link: https://twitter.com/JoseCienAlmas/st...13372773945345

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Network News is reporting that more 1993 WCW Saturday Night is coming to WWE Network This Monday, March 16 as a part of the March classic content drop

Originally Posted by PWI Q - Have you heard anything about the tiered WWE Network finally taken shape and being officially launched? A - We have been told that there has been no real indication internally as to when they will launch. The original plan was to launch in January but then that was delayed.

From PWI's weekly Q&A articles.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling David Bixenspan has a feature on VICE regarding the impact a cancellation of WrestleMania Weekend will have on independent promotions and conventions. The article features comments from Brett Lauderdale of Game Changer Wrestling, wrestler Chris Dickinson, and the most sobering account from Michael Bochicchio of Highspots who stated that a full cancellation would likely result in the promoter having to sell his house.

Link: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/p...-wrestling-wwe

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Michael Bochiccio at Highspots did a video Q&A on the current situation involving WrestleCon for WrestleMania Weekend amidst the COVID-19 crisis. The promoter of the convention stated they have not canceled the event yet due to the liability he would assume by canceling it on his own. He stated that the hotel fee alone by canceling now would bankrupt WrestleCon and potentially bankrupt Highspots, as well. He added that he has put in close to $200,000 for this convention and assured anyone that has purchased a ticket to the convention they will receive a full refund.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling EVOLVE has said they will follow the lead of WrestleMania regarding their shows in Tampa that weekend and are still scheduled to proceed as of this writing.

Originally Posted by Fightful WrestleTalk announced that it will do a show on March 16 to help support independent wrestlers whose bookings have been impacted by the coronavirus. The show will feature matches from Will Ospreay, Bea Priestley, David Starr, Rampage Brown and more. Full details here.

Link: https://wrestletalk.com/news/wrestle...o-fans-monday/

Originally Posted by Fightful Although he plays a malicious character with no remorse when he's inside the squared circle, Sami Callihan is urging the wrestling community to come together like never before during the Coronavirus outbreak and says that he will not be appearing at any wrestling events until the global pandemic is more contained. Making the statement on his Twitter account, this comes amid uncertainty surrounding wrestling event set to take place during WrestleMania 36 weekend in Tampa, Florida. Sami says that at this time it is not about characters or storylines but about keeping one another safe.

Link: https://twitter.com/TheSamiCallihan/...13618342662145


TPWW Frontpage:

• AEW Relocates Two More Dynamites From Milwaukee and St. Louis
• WWE Officially Moves Monday’s Raw to the Performance Center
• The Revival Possibly Done With WWE
• Hangman Page Says He’ll No Longer Be Able to Accept Beer From Fans
• Production of WWE Backstage Suspended Due to Coronavirus

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The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer At least for this week, whether it was people needing entertainment or a combination of airing the Royal Rumble and having Steve Austin, Undertaker, and Edge on the show, a Raw almost devoid of first-run wrestling did 2.34 million viewers. It was the best number for the show since February 17, and up eight percent from last week. Raw still took the top three spots in 18-49 with a 0.76 average, with no cable news show beating 0.55. Raw continued its daylight savings time pattern of the second hour being the highest rated, perhaps because of the re-airing of this year's men's Royal Rumble match. Austin was saved for last, and there was a very significant second to third hour drop of 15 percent ... Raw was down 13 percent from the same week last year. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.41 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.49 million viewers 10 p.m. 2.11 million viewers

Originally Posted by PWI Georgia Smith, the daughter of WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2020 member Davey Boy Smith noted on her Twitter account that she had spoken with WWE and that the company is hoping to hold the postponed Hall of Fame ceremony, originally slated for Thursday 4/2 in Tampa over Summerslam weekend this August. Summerslam is slated for 8/23 in Boston, MA at the TDBank Garden Arena.

Originally Posted by PWI The Tampa Bay Local Organizing Committee issued the following statement: "Our community has waited 36 years to host WrestleMania and while we are saddened that this unforeseen situation has led us to today's announcement, this is totally the right call for the security and safety of everyone involved. A huge thank you to all our local leaders and our friends at WWE, as we collectively worked through the unprecedented fluidity of the last few weeks. The Tampa Bay-WWE partnership has never been stronger."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Raymond James Stadium’s Twitter account has information up about ticket refunds for WrestleMania 36. Refunds for WrestleMania week events are available at the point of purchase and those who purchased their tickets through Ticketmaster will be refunded in 30 days.

Link: https://twitter.com/RJStadium/status...688802825?s=20

Originally Posted by PWI As noted, the current State of Emergency the City of New York is under makes it impossible for WWE to run their scheduled event at Madison Square Garden on Sunday 3/22. We are told that as of two weeks ago, WWE had locked in a Saturday 6/27 return to the Garden, so it may be that date is announced as the replacement with ticketholders being able to use their tickets on that date. The 6/27 date was put on hold prior to the current coronavirus outbreak. Given the vortex the world is in right now however, anything is possible and subject to change, as recent days have shown. WWE and MSG have yet to officially announce the 3/22 postponement, but it will 100% not be taking place on that date.

Originally Posted by PWI Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide announced today that they are postponing all of their events until further notice due to the virus pandemic.

Originally Posted by PWI Last night was the first time a Royal Rumble match has aired on the USA Network since the very first Rumble, which aired as a USA Network special in January 1988.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Ryan Satin of Pro Wrestling Sheet noted on Twitter that in order to enter the WWE Performance Center, WWE talent, crew and those alike have to pass a screening conducted by a team of physicians.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Post Stock News has information up about a lawsuit that WWE is involved in with Tilray, Inc. and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and both claimed that WWE has made misleading statements about their respective companies. Inovio is involved because they’re claiming WWE made misleading statements about the company’s development of a vaccine for the coronavirus which led to them losing a number of shareholders.

Link: https://potstocknews.com/class-actio...f-shareholders

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling With the news making the rounds that WrestleMania is taking place from the Performance Center, former multi-time WWE Champion and WWE Backstage contributor CM Punk tweeted the following about the news: “Well that’s one way to make sure Roman finally gets not booed and nobody chants for meeeeeeee.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per PWInsider, the truck that Becky Lynch drove to the Performance Center on RAW was supposed to be a part of WrestleMania AXXESS and incorporated into her WrestleMania 36 entrance.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling To promote their ‘KAYfABE’ wrestling show, Lita and Gail Kim spoke with Cultaholic for an interview. Gail and Lita opened up about their time in WWE, specifically having to do Bra & Panties matches. They were not too fond of the matches and Gail shared that her first house show match in WWE was a Bra & Panties match and she was terrified of what was to come. Gail Kim: “I was mortified, because I never had to do that on the independents and it was my very first house show match with WWE, and it wasn’t televised, thank goodness. But, it was… I just didn’t even know how to go about it. I had to be told how to do it and it wasn’t my comfort zone. We’ll just say that and so when you’re not comfortable, you’re not gonna perform your best.” Lita: “I feel like the girls would really bond over that because no one was stoked on it and so when they would go out there, it’s like we would all kind of just run to the back, we’d cover ourselves up and roll our eyes and be like, ‘Moving on!’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chavo Guerrero joined The Wrestling INC Daily podcast and he was asked about the Latino representation on Monday Night RAW with Rey Mysterio, Angel Garza, Humberto Carrillo, Zelina Vega and Andrade all being intertwined in a storyline and spotlighted. Chavo thinks highly of all the aforementioned individuals and thinks it’s good that they are able to put money in their pockets as well as bring in money for WWE. “You know, those guys are all super, uber talented and there’s no hiding that a lot of great talent has come out of Mexico before and not only Eddie, but so many like a Mil Mascaras and all of these people that are box office stars. Not just great wrestlers but drew a lot of money, and that’s kind of what it comes down to really. A lot of people can put on good matches but if no one’s really paying to see it, WWE will not get behind it in a sense because it’s a business. That’s what wrestling is. To see these guys and see Rey [Mysterio] come out and kind of, to me, elevate a lot of these guys and now these guys are just starting to draw money, it’s great to see. It’s great to see that these guys have the opportunity to go out there and not only put on incredible matches, but some money in their pockets and make some money for the organization. I love that. I love to see that. You look at Alberto Del Rio, he was a pretty big draw then. He did alright for himself.” During his appearance on the show, Chavo also revealed that the filming for Netflix’s GLOW series has been postponed due to the Coronavirus outbreak.

Originally Posted by Fightful After briefly tumbling to just under $30 per share, WWE stock recovered and closed at $32.75 per share when the market closed.

Originally Posted by Fightful Fightful has learned that AEW Dynamite will take place at Daily's Place in Jacksonville as originally planned. This past week, the City of Jacksonville twitter indicated that all city-owned venues would be closed, including Daily's Place. However, we've heard from the AEW side that the city's twitter account apparently thought a public event was being referred to. AEW Dynamite will proceed at Daily's Place as a closed door event with no fans, and the city of Jacksonville has not had an issue with that.

Originally Posted by Fightful The official WWE twitter account got social media talking on Tuesday afternoon by tweeting an upside-down message that read "The Truth Will Be Heard." The account also changed the Twitter header to a blank white image and the profile picture to a blank black image. The bio was also changed to say "Expose. W a t c h i n g. //" The tweet was quickly deleted and the profile has returned to normal. wtf??? pic.twitter.com/PERETZfLTo — sarah ٭ (@flairsnia) March 17, 2020 This is what happened for those who missed it. @WWE posted this and their bio looked like this & a minute later it was back to normal. hacked or we're being worked pic.twitter.com/uR1VgFr0NZ — The BLHW (@StephanieHypes) March 17, 2020 It's unknown if the account was hacked or if WWE is running some sort of angle. IMPACT Wrestling is currently running a hacker gimmick where Reality Is Lost took over the IMPACT account at the end of last Tuesday's episode. WWE is also doing a hacker gimmick with Malcolm Bivens trying to hack into The Bump every week.

Link: https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/w...-will-be-heard

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Chris Jericho chatted with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated to promote VICE’s Dark Side Of The Ring episode about Chris Benoit that premieres on March 24th. Jericho shared that a great portion of the documentary focuses in on how much Eddie Guerrero’s passing impacted Chris Benoit. “There was a huge connection between Chris’ life and Eddie Guerrero’s life, and his death, so half the story is the story of Eddie and the other half is of Chris. I think we did the right way of portraying this, reminding everyone there were people behind this, not just sensational murder coverage. There is a story to tell of a friendship and a family, and a guy that was not a monster. This was someone you could trust and that was very respected in the wrestling community amongst his peers.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Dark Side Of The Ring uploaded a teaser for the Chris Benoit episode of their series that premieres on March 24th.

New trailer for the 2-hour season premiere episode on Chris Benoit.

Tune-in March 24 at 9PM ET/PT on @vicetv and @CraveCanada @IAmJericho @mexwarrior @JRsBBQ @VickieGuerrero pic.twitter.com/Q1kYiGN5rp

— Dark Side of the Ring (@DarkSideOfRing) March 17, 2020

TPWW Frontpage:

• Coronavirus Updates: UFC, USA Wrestling, AEW, GCW, WWN, WrestleCon, NJPW, & More Indies
• Ring of Honor Cancels All Shows Through May 31
• NXT to Have “Modified Format” This Week, Next Raw and SD Moved to PC
• Impact Cancels TNA Revival Show
• AEW Dynamite Episodes to Take Place on Closed Sets “Until Further Notice”
• NWA Cancels Crockett Cup PPV and NWA Powerrr Tapings
• Impact Cancels Two Shows Due to Coronavirus, Still Paying Talent

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer The main event angle on last night's Impact included the announcement that Ken Shamrock is the newest member of the promotion's Hall of Fame. It was hyped that last night's show would feature a "career announcement" from Shamrock. Josh Mathews revealed that Shamrock will join Impact Wrestling's Hall of Fame at Bound for Glory later this year. A video package then played, with it including some footage from Shamrock's WWE career. It highlighted Shamrock being a former WWF Intercontinental Champion, Tag Team Champion, and submitting The Rock to win the 1998 King of the Ring. The footage said courtesy of WWE on it, and Impact also thanked WWE for it

Link: https://twitter.com/IMPACTWRESTLING/...03416505999360

Originally Posted by Observer AEW has revealed this week's set of top-five roster rankings: Men's division -- Champion: Jon Moxley (7-0 singles record in 2020, 12-2-1 overall record) Chris Jericho (0-1 singles record in 2020, 11-3-1 overall record) MJF (3-0 singles record in 2020, 8-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (1-0 singles record in 2020, 17-6 overall record) Cody (4-1 singles record in 2020, 11-4-1 overall record) PAC (3-2 singles record in 2020, 9-6-1 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (4-1 singles record in 2020, 9-4 overall record) Hikaru Shida (4-1 singles record in 2020, 9-5 overall record) Kris Statlander (2-2 singles record in 2020, 6-5 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) Riho (3-2 singles record in 2020, 11-5 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (6-0 tag team record in 2020, 17-6 overall record for Omega, 13-8 overall record for Page) The Dark Order (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 9-3 overall record for Evil Uno, 9-4 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, 16-7 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 15-6 overall record for Frankie Kazarian) Best Friends (3-2 tag team record in 2020, 9-12 overall record for Trent Barreta, 8-10 overall record for Chuck Taylor) Private Party (2-1 tag team record in 2020, 6-11 overall record for Marq Quen, 6-11 overall record for Isiah Kassidy)

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has revealed the hosts for tonight's modified format edition of NXT. Prior to tonight's NXT, WWE announced that the episode will be hosted by Triple H and Tom Phillips. WWE issued a statement yesterday noting that the show "will air as regularly scheduled in a modified format with elements ranging from in-depth character profiles and story breakdowns as well as never-before-seen interviews and content." Triple H and Michael Cole did commentary for last Friday's SmackDown, while Phillips, Byron Saxton, and Jerry Lawler called Raw.

Originally Posted by PWI It was announced that Brandi Rhodes will be ring announcing as Justin Roberts was unable to make tonight's Dynamite taping in Florida: If I gotta do it, I’m gonna do it my way. This’ll be fun, watch. ???? #AEWDynamite #AEWonTNT pic.twitter.com/aVoUMEc5PS — The Brandalorian (@TheBrandiRhodes) March 18, 2020

Originally Posted by PWI Jim Ross noted on his social media that he's flown to Jacksonville, so that's where AEW will be broadcasting tonight. It will be from what has been termed a "closed set" so there will be no fans in attendance. Before all the restrictions on public gatherings, there was a plan to charge $10 admission at Daily's Place and donate the entire live gate to charity. As of yesterday, AEW was not planning to tape additional content beyond AEW Dynamite and AEW Dark as they want to continue to go live weekly.

Originally Posted by PWI The WWE 3/22 date at Madison Square Garden is now officially listed as postponed. They have not announced a replacement date but as we noted, there was a scheduled 6/27 date planned before the past few weeks happened. If you need an idea of how massive the shut downs in New York City will be, the Hilton Hotel that hosted the 2004 WWE Hall of Fame ceremony and the 2019 Wrestlecon is shutting down indefinetly as of 3/20, closing all 1,878 rooms. It is the biggest hotel in all of New York City.

Originally Posted by PWI The New Japan Pro Wrestling website has an interview with Kota Ibushi. One of the topics bought up was the illness that forced him off New Japan's U.S. tour earlier this year. Some highlights: What happened exactly - "I just felt absolutely terrible one day, and threw up two or three times. What can happen is that there’s this thin connective tissue between your stomach and your esophagus, and that can tear and get damaged. That’s Mallory-Weiss. (Syndrome)...Ibushi: Apparently a lot of college students get it. If they’re not used to alcohol and binge drink they throw up, and that sparks this issue. For me, it was probably the ‘flu that sparked the vomiting." Having Two Illnesses at once: "Oh, it sucked. The flu alone sucked. I had this awful cough, and I felt a bunch of mucus in my throat. I thought I could clear it and couldn’t. Then I coughed really hard, about five or six times and all of a sudden there’s all this clotted blood on my hands....and I had a fever over 40 degrees at the time. I thought, ‘man, that’s it, I’m gonna die…' And my lower back was in so much pain. Enough where I was thinking ‘I don’t care if I die, as long as my back stops hurting’. Bear in mind, this was at 4AM on the day I was set to fly out to America." Missing the tour: "Even if I’d dragged myself onto that plane, I’d be nothing but a hindrance to everybody. I wouldn’t be able to do anything, and if I felt terrible on the flight, I couldn’t just ask to be dropped off. It took two or three days for the fever to come down, but the symptoms stayed with me for a whole week. To be completely honest, I’m still a little sore in the stomach area, so I haven’t been drinking at all; I’m not a big drinker anyway."

Originally Posted by PWI The NWA also announced the following: We also have opened up a special merchandise offer to help the roster and staff who have been affected by the COVID-19 suspension of events. All profits from these five items will go directly to those staff and talents. NWA Logo Men’s Tank Top, NWA Powerrr Stack Men Tank Top, NWA Logo Women’s Tank Top, NWA Powerrr Stack Women’s Tank Top? and pre-orders of the new WE ARE NWA POWERRR T-Shirt

Link: https://www.nationalwrestlingalliance.com/shop

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling After receiving a cease and desist letter from WWE, Freelance Wrestling changed the name of their March 21st event from “In Your Warehouse” to “Warehourse Wars”.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Speaking to Commercial Appeal following Monday Night RAW at the Performance Center, Jerry Lawler stated that he’s not against WWE inserting crowd noises into the WrestleMania 36 matches to make the empty arena bouts more entertaining for those watching from home. “I’ve been to (football) training camps where the players go through their practice sessions with loud music or crowd noise piped in. I don’t think it would hurt anything at all if they piped in some crowd noise behind the matches, and even explain it to the fans. It’ll make the matches more entertaining and it’ll make it easier for the performers themselves.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Japan’s government officials are set to have a meeting about the Coronavirus and following that, STARDOM will have information on if fans will be able to attend their Cindarella tournament. The tournament is set for March 24th at Korakuen Hall.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former WCW and longtime WWE referee Charles Robinson appeared on the Prime Time with Sean Mooney podcast for a two-part interview. In part one, Robinson revealed how his “Little Naitch” nickname and his friendship with Ric Flair kick-started. After Robinson met Flair at a wrestling show, he decided to start up a fan club and went to Flair’s house where he first came into contact with a young Charlotte Flair. “Well it started out just going to the matches. Finally, the first time I think I met Ric was probably in the late 70s at a ballpark in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina. He was having a match against Wahoo McDaniel, and during the intermission, I went down there just to say hi and he goes, ‘Kid, go buy me a Coke’. So he gave me a dollar bill, I went and got his Coke for 50 cents and went back down. That’s the first time I actually met him and got a photo and got the autograph which, unfortunately I don’t have anymore. You lose those things. But, then as time went on, I wanted to start up a Ric Flair fan club. So, I don’t recommend doing this but I found out where he lived and I went to his house, and I remember getting out of the car and Ashley [Charlotte Flair] was gosh, maybe five or six years old, and I come up and she goes, ‘I’m Ashley Fliehr. What are you doing here?’ That’s what I was basically,” Robinson agreed with Mooney jokingly calling him a stalker. “But I really wanted to start up a fan club. I thought it would be something great to do. I didn’t know about all the corporate things going on in WCW and such that you had to… you just can’t do that stuff. They own all the rights to that, but Ric was very, very nice. He did not have me arrested. He actually showed me the gym in his garage which was awesome, but for someone just to show up on your doorstep like that, hell, it was pretty amazing.”

Originally Posted by Fightful LA Park has a brand new cooking show coming to MLW Fusion. Below is MLW's statement on LA Park: If you follow LA Park on social media (which is mandatory), you may be familiar with his popular grilling videos. Often cooking lakeside in Mexico, the legendary luchador is as mean in the ring as he is in the kitchen. That’s why MLW made the obvious move and offered the brawling luchador his own segment on MLW Fusion. This weekend the chairman of MLW invites you to to join him on his new cooking segment on MLW Fusion tentatively called “¡LA Park en la cocina, pendejos!“ What will Park be cooking? No one dares to ask.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE's stock finished at $33.94 per share when the stock market closed.

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• Scott Steiner Appears at Indie Show, Talks About His Health Scare

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Originally Posted by Observer On a night where both companies took different approaches to the idea of running a show with no fans, AEW Dynamite scored a big ratings success with their version of an empty arena show. Dynamite averaged 932,000 viewers on Wednesday night, up 22 percent from last week. With news coverage of the coronavirus pandemic dominating the cable ratings, Dynamite finished 20th in the 18-49 demo. That said, the rating in that category was a 0.35, up 35 percent from last week. The viewership was the best number for Dynamite since January 15. NXT, on the other hand, presented a show with no live wrestling action and video packages building up their current feuds. It averaged 542,000 viewers, down 22 percent from last week. In 18-49, the show averaged a 0.16 rating, dropping all the way to 81st in that category. The viewership was the lowest to date on USA Network. The 18-49 demo number was the second lowest, trailing only the January 1 episode, which was a Best Of show that also featured the NXT year-end awards. Detailed demo ratings for NXT are not available since the show finished outside the top 50. For Dynamite, the strongest demo was men 18-49, where it actually tied for seventh overall on cable with a 0.47 rating.

Originally Posted by Observer On this week’s episode of The Bellas Podcast, Daniel Bryan mentioned wanting to reduce his wrestling schedule when his contract comes up: “WWE has been great. They’re gonna give me six weeks paternity leave, which so few places in the United States do that. So I’ll get to be home that first six weeks. But then after that, it’s not long until my contract is up. We’ve been talking about what we do from there. To me, in my mind, it’s almost like, I think I’m just done being a full-time wrestler. I love being a dad. I will always love wrestling, and I always want to do wrestling. But when I say always do wrestling, that means maybe once a month or once every couple months.”

Originally Posted by PWI In an update from something I wrote last night, the word internally is that AEW Dynamite will indeed move forward with the Blood and Guts match ASAP. There were rumblings it would be pushed back last night after the taping last night but we are hearing now that it will be happening soon as AEW feels its important to have the match take place as advertised since fans are expecting that storyline to climax. For those who have asked, we are told everyone who entered AEW's taping last night was examined and checked out by the company's medical staff (headed by Dr. Sampson, the doctor who saved Jerry Lawler's life several years ago) before they were allowed to enter the facility. As noted last night, everyone who appeared did so voluntarily after being told they could skip the taping and still be paid. Those who did not make the taping (or who miss future tapings) will not have it held against them and will be paid as if they appear.

Originally Posted by PWI Matt Hardy's music on last night's AEW Dynamite was written and performed by his wife, Rebecca Hardy. MGM Resorts is stating they will resume live events in mid-May, which would technically mean Double or Nothing 2020 would still be officially on.

Originally Posted by PWI Brodie Lee was always planned as the Exalted One once AEW confirmed he would be free and coming to them. AEW leaned into the tease that it would be Matt Hardy to help mask Lee's debut.

Originally Posted by PWI Last week I asked numerous WWE sources why they didn’t have some employees or trainees in the seats at the PC to make some noise during the matches. They all said the same thing, they were not allowed. They couldn’t have people in the crowd and they had to perform in front of an empty area. WWE is not under the radar the way that AEW is (or maybe was) so they can’t violate rules. They are also publicly traded while AEW isn’t. As Mike reported on the site last night, it’s clear AEW realizes that what they did last night may be a one time only thing. The city or state or TNT itself may say you can’t do that again. That is why all of the graphics didn’t say “next week” when they talked about upcoming matches.

Originally Posted by PWI All of the interviews that were featured on last night's episode of WWE NXT were filmed on Tuesday at the WWE Performance Center. Triple H and Tom Phillips' wrap-around segments were shot at WWE's TV HQ in Stamford. Once that material was filmed, WWE's editing team worked with a frenzy to get the episode put together in time for it to air on time on the USA Network. We are told that they were literally down to the wire and got the episode completed 100% not long before they were scheduled to air. A few readers have asked why NXT didn't mention Wrestlemania has morphed into a two night broadcast. We are told the content that aired last night had already been taped before that decision was made.

Originally Posted by PWI The Main Event, the first WWE Studios-Netflix collaboration will be debuting on the streaming service on 4/10. As PWInsider.com exclusively broke back in February 2019, WWE Studios had been working develop new, original feature films in conjunction with Netflix, with plans to release them via the streaming service. The films will be directed towards family audiences. The Main Event tells the story of a ten-year old boy who is bullied but dreams of growing up to become a WWE professional wrestler. However, he gets to live his dream earlier when he discovers the secret to having super-strength in his breakfast cereal, becoming "The Spaghetti Kid." The screenplay features small roles for Keith Lee, Sheamus, The Miz and Bray Wyatt, with a number of references to WWE NXT as well.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WrestleCon noted on Twitter that they wanted to book Shingo Takagi vs. Brodie Lee for WrestleMania but Lee’s “new boss” didn’t want him wrestling in Tampa. The tweet has since been deleted. Lee made his All Elite Wrestling debut on the March 18th episode of Dynamite and was revealed as “The Exalted One” of Dark Order.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Alberto El Patron made an appearance on the talk show Nos Cayó La Noche and it was during this appearance that El Patron said he’s been in communication with WWE about a potential return. Fightful Select reached out to WWE about said comments and the sports-entertainment company denied those claims. Another source reiterated to the site that they would not do anything to make Paige uncomfortable which includes having El Patron around.

Originally Posted by Fightful Former WWE wrestler Zeda Zhang reveals why WWE's expansion into the Chinese market did not do well. In an interview on the Pro And Bro Wrestling Podcast, Zhang talked about her time in WWE and said she was headed for training at the WWE Performance Center earlier than perhaps expected because they wanted to get a head start on expanding into the Chinese market. However, WWE's attempt to push the Chinese wrestlers it had on its roster stopped when a live event tour in the country did not go over so well. "Talking to staff there who handled the behind the scenes stuff, they always say that at the end of the day it's a business. If they can't use you for something, the timing, the market stuff, you can't even control. They have to release you. The reason why they pulled me so early, like six months early, was because the Chinese were coming and because I'm Chinese, they wanted to push me. They were trying to get into China and it didn't work so well. The first six months were amazing, we had our own camera crew, they filmed us for promos all the time. We were the only people that had our camera crew filming us for content to push in China. They went on tour over there and it didn't go over so well [and because of that], our camera crew was gone. No one's paying attention to us now," Zhang said. Zhang then spoke about why she believes WWE's expansion into the Chinese market did not go over as well as the company had hoped. Zhang said WWE tried to mimic the NBA's massive success in China, but that WWE's wrestling didn't quite fit well with the people over there and that they did not have a firm grasp or understanding of Chinese culture to succeed. "WWE is trying to get into China because they wanted to copy the NBA and their success. But the problem is, they don't know the culture very well and you got to think about Chinese history with their kung fu and they're watching wrestling. The style doesn't fit with what they like. They think that it's too fake and when they had their show out there, I guess since it was TVs, some people might not have tried so hard and some fans were just saying, 'This sh*t is so fake' and it's embarrassing for the Chinese talent that got to go over there. It's that and also China is very prideful of their culture and so they want to show something that has more than just a Chinese face," Zhang said.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE Planning to Tape Multiple Shows Over Next Week, May Tape WrestleMania Matches
• There Will Reportedly Be No Battle Royals at WrestleMania This Year
• WrestleMania Will Reportedly Take Place in Multiple Locations
• Matt Hardy Comments on Joining AEW

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The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

WWE is also insistent on running WrestleMania, which will now be spread over two nights, 4/4 and 4/5, from a number of different locations with no fans, including the Performance Center in Orlando. From what we are told, the primary location both nights will be the Performance Center, but there were to be a few gimmick matches shot on different locations outside those walls as of 3/17, but that was also subject to change by the next day. To show how late a decision this was, WWE released the two days on 3/18, and the multiple locations a few hours later. On the 3/18 NXT show, which aired after both announcements were made, but clearly the Tom Phillips and HHH wrap-arounds were taped earlier in the day, they were still talking about WrestleMania being one show on 4/5. The multiple locations is to allow a number of people to be there while not exceeding 50 people in any location ... There was talk last week of delaying the show until 6/7 and while that may be earlier than everything is contained and there is no guarantee that date would be viable, delaying the show until you can have a large gathering seemed like the obvious solution. At this point you really have to question Vince McMahon with the idea of giving up revenue of $20 million or more and allowing fans to see the biggest event of the year live. Many have. We’re told that with so much uncertainty, and the fact there would be no for sure timetable, he made the call that he did. It was a shocking call because it removes the fans and the spectacle from the show, which is really what WrestleMania is about. It also devastated a number of smaller companies piggy-backing off the event. Some may have been, but if we go with the idea of, say an August Mania week, many of these companies also could have re-arranged their schedules. In many cases, with money outlaid for the weekend and no insurance, many are devastated. From an economic standpoint, at least right now, things are terrible for everyone, but it’s the most horrible for those who made their living from the business and are not under contract to one of the major companies. It’s the people who are the backbone of the future of the business.

When it comes to PPV, WWE officials have told us it will be different depending on the system. The idea is that whatever price would have been charged for WrestleMania, probably between $70 and $80, in some systems will be the charge and you get both shows, while other systems will offer the shows individually and collectively, and if you order individually, you would get the one night for half of the two-night price. The announcement of it being on the network and PPV is also that McMahon hasn’t been able to reach a deal regarding selling the PPVs to a major streaming service. The events of the past week are going to put a halt to most new high dollar commitments by a major company so wherever talks may have been, no deal is likely to be made at this point. There had been no talk of late that such a deal was close, although talks were most definitely going on.

From what we understand, WrestleMania is far from finalized. All the matches announced are done. The belief is the show will change forms in some ways. At first we were told there is a good chance they will do less matches, but also told nothing is definite, and now with two dates and different locations, I’d expect 16 or more matches total. The changes were all likely to be finalized this week. The lesser and as of yet unannounced Raw and Smackdown matches, including the Smackdown tag titles, the IC title, the U.S. title, Raw tag title and women’s tag titles are not etched in stone. Beth Phoenix & Natalya in the women’s tag title with Asuka & Kairi Sane and Nikki Cross & Alexa Bliss is up in the air. They were still building Cross & Bliss for a title shot on Smackdown and Asuka was one of a relatively small number of people still used on Raw. Edge vs. Randy Orton last man standing and Seth Rollins vs. Kevin Owens are official additions to Brock Lesnar vs. Drew McIntyre for the WWE title, Bill Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns for the Universal title, Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler for the Raw women’s title, John Cena vs. Bray Wyatt, Undertaker vs. A.J. Styles, Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte Flair for the NXT women’s title, and a six-way with names to be finalized for the Smackdown women’s title held by Bayley (Sasha Banks, Lacey Evans, Carmella and Naomi and one other person was the last word on this match but it’s also not finalized). There are questions, notably the borders closing to Canada, regarding Lesnar, who lives in Saskatchewan. The belief right now is that Lesnar will be getting in and Raw this week in theory will show that one way or the other since he’s scheduled. For lesser names, like The Singhs, who still live in the Vancouver area, they tweeted that it looks like they won’t be able to work any time soon. People have asked about Owens, but he lives in Florida so there’s no issue ... Rey Mysterio beating U.S. champion Andrade in a non-title match would seem to set up a title match. We are told that match is possible but not a lock as no matches not announced right now are locks any longer.

Newsletter was written before news popped up of the Battle Royals being tossed out so Mania might end up with 14 matches at most.

The WWE has also shut down the Performance Center as far as the talent training there. There is no training or working there other than it will be open if needed for television shoots ... Vince McMahon wasn’t at Smackdown but was in communication all day. He and Kevin Dunn were at Raw ... Raw, Smackdown and AEW all had a limited crew kept to essential personnel. Raw had a few writers, a few producers, McMahon, Dunn, Paul Heyman and a few support people.

Smackdown on 3/13 did a 1.59 rating and 2,470,000 viewers (1.29 viewers per home), making it the most-watched sports program of the week. There were still sports that took place earlier in the week. The number was almost exactly the same as the 2,456,000 viewers the week before under normal circumstances. This was the first empty arena show, and also had John Cena and the return of Jeff Hardy advertised. The show did the usual 0.7 in the 18-49 demo. Shark Tank was first at 0.8 and everything else on ABC and CBS all did 0.7s, but beat NBC. Smackdown had the lowest total viewers of all network shows. Not that it means a lot, but last year in the same time slot FOX averaged 3,253,000 viewers and a 0.6 in 18-49.

So this is the updated situation on The Revival, which was first reported by Fightful.com. As mentioned last week, the two have been taken off all bookings. Because both have already earned more than their contractual downside over the course of the contract, they are no longer being paid, in this case Dawson through early April and Wilder through mid-June. Both have asked for releases multiple times. This does put great economic pressure on them, since they have families, to sign. One would suspect the idea is to go to AEW and feud with the Young Bucks, because they’ve turned down one offer after another over the past year. The timing looked great for them to leave for AEW two weeks ago, but things have obviously changed greatly with AEW economically, as with everyone. Dash Wilder, whose real name is Dan Wheeler, has applied for a trademark of the name Cash Wheeler

AEW talent is scattered all over the country and some are flown in from overseas, which looks to mean they would not be available for some time, such as Pac, Yuka Sakazaki, Cima, T-Hawk, Lindaman, Bea Priestley and others. Riho and Hikaru Shida both now live in the U.S. ... AEW ran with a light crew. The crew left the building after load-in before the wrestlers were allowed to enter the building. They had strict rules to never have more than 50 people in the large Ampitheater at one time. There were no congregations of people in discussions that numbered more than ten.

At both the WWE Smackdown show at the Performance Center, as well as the CMLL show that same night and the MLW show, there was a doctor who took the temperature of all the wrestlers. I believe that was also the case at the UFC show. It’s a necessary step but far from foolproof. The virus can sit dormant for a bit so accurate testing on the spot is impossible. You can do coronavirus testing, which neither WWE, CMLL or UFC did, because it takes time to get the results. Having a temperature or other symptoms is a sign but you can still be an carrier who exhibits no symptoms. Court Bauer of MLW, noted that he learned after the Tijuana show that he could have had everyone in the clear based on Center for Disease Control standards but that doesn’t mean people could not pick up the virus from somebody carrying it at an event. He noted that after the show he learned doing the recommended steps were just steps but far from foolproof. He then made the call, which was the only call anyway, of not running events until June. AEW will be running TV tapings from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville for the time being, with no fans, at least as long as they are able. Originally the plan was limited fans, media, friends and family, but within a day that was changed to no fans and no media. The plan is to do so at least through 4/15, if outside forces don’t scrap it, or if the promotion doesn’t change their mind about it.

At first, the Westshore Marriott would not refund either Highspots or fans who had purchased rooms their money when it was impossible for the event to take place. Highspots attempted to use the impossibility clause in its contract when signed with The Westshore Marriott in Tampa for the week. Highspots’ expenses just to the hotel for the week, not including talent deposits and flights that may or may not be able to be refunded was about $142,750. Marriott was at first claiming that it is neither illegal nor impossible for Highspots to run the convention that week and only offered to cut back the costs to $114,202, or 80 percent of the original total. Total losses for the week were estimated to be in the range of $200,000. They did vow to run another convention next year in Los Angeles. In addition, fans who had purchased rooms at the hotel have been told by the hotel that they are not refundable. However, after Florida was declared a state of emergency, the Marriott changed its tune and will be refunding all the money to WrestleCon. Both Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens vowed to stop staying at Marriott Hotels when Marriott would not allow the rooms to be canceled without payment. However, fans who had to put down a certain amount up front as a deposit for their rooms for the week ($227.86 per room was the deposit) were not able to get that back. Marriott claimed that the new Global Cancellation policy that would have refunded people’s deposits does not apply to either special events or peak season bookings.

Viceland’s award-winning Dark Side of the Ring series will have a two-hour season premiere, covering the 2007 story where Benoit murdered his wife Nancy, son Daniel and then killed himself. This debuts on 3/24, kicking off the second season of the show ... One person who has seen the piece, but not the Reelz piece, said that the Viceland piece was extremely difficult to watch. He said that Jericho and Toffoloni came off very well, very level-headed on a story that both had such close emotional ties to, and did a good job assessing the story with hindsight. He also said that you come out of it feeling sorry for David Benoit, whose father was his hero. His life was destroyed by this and he was completely innocent, having thus thrust on him at such a young age. You come out of it feeling awful for him.

With most viewers glued to the news, AEW, with its live show, did 932,000 viewers and a 0.35 in 18-49, up 21.7 percent in viewers and 34.6 percent in 18-49. The growth was a combination of no NBA, perhaps curiosity since they were still doing a live show with the promised debut of The Exalted One, and NXT not having any matches and having a big decline from usual numbers because of it. AEW finished No. 20 in 18-49, trailing 18 news shows and Real Housewives of New Jersey on Bravo. NXT, with no matches and just three huge video packages, did 542,000 viewers and a 0.16 in 18-49, a decline of 22.2 percent in viewers and 23.8 percent in 18-49. NXT was No. 81 in 18-49 ... AEW’s growth was mostly over the age of 35 as compared to last week. The show did a 0.13 in 12-17 (up 18.2 percent from last week), 0.19 in 18-34 (up 5.6 percent), 0.51 in 35-49 (up 50.0 percent) and 0.38 in 50+ (one of the best ever, up 15.2 percent). NXT not being in the top 50 meant demo breakdowns weren’t available.

A few more notes on the 3/11 ratings. AEW’s lead-in was 32 percent lower than usual so that hurt the first hour. But both AEW and NXT were down about ten percent in viewers and 20 percent in 18-49 in the first hour. That’s probably attributable to the news viewing. But in the second hour, when Donald Trump gave his speech, the news of Tom Hanks having the coronavirus and the NBA canceling its season all at once, AEW fell 21 percent down from last week and 30 percent down in 18-49. But this didn’t affect NXT, which in the second hour was down five percent in 18-49, but up five percent overall. While AEW did win in every key demo, and won all eight quarters in both total viewers and 18-49, when it comes to total viewers, from 9 to 9:45 p.m. the two shows were almost identical ... In segment one, AEW had Cody vs. Ortiz, which did 811,000 viewers and 356,000 in 18-49. NXT had Keith Lee vs. Cameron Grimes, which did 667,000 viewers and 259,000 in 18-49. In segment two, AEW had the end of Cody vs. Ortiz, the post-match, The Inner Circle destroying Nick Jackson and the beginning of Hikaru Shida & Kris Statlander vs. Nyla Rose & Bea Priestley, and lost 22,000 viewers and 16,000 in 18-49. NXT had the end of Lee vs. Grimes, the post-match and beginning of Mia Yim vs. Dakota Kai, and it gained 10,000 viewers but lost 4,000 in 18-49. In segment three, AEW had the women’s tag match and lost 13,000 viewers and lost 34,000 in 18-49 . NXT had most of Yim vs. Kai and Tommaso Ciampa arriving and gained 13,000 viewers and 17,000 in 18-49. In segment four, AEW had Jurassic Express vs. Butcher & Blade & MJF, and lost 36,000 viewers and gained 26,000 in 18-49. NXT had Kushida vs. Raul Mendoza plus Tyler Breeze & Austin Theory interview, and lost 10,000 viewers and 9,000 in 18-49. In segment five, AEW had the end of Jurassic Express vs. Butcher & Blade & MJF and lost 12,000 viewers and lost 4,000 in 18-49. AEW had the Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley angle plus Tegan Nox vs. Deonna Purrazzo and gained 41,000 viewers and 16,000 in 18-49. This brought AEW’s lead to 728,000 to 711,000 overall and 328,000 to 279,000 in 18-49. In segment six, AEW had Joey Janela & Private Party vs. Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix & Pac, and lost 11,000 overall and 10,000 in 18-49. NXT had The Undisputed Era angle with Velveteen Dream, and lost 10,000 viewers and lost 1,000 in 18-49. In segment seven, AEW did promotional business for the next show and had the Jim Ross interview and beginning of the main event and gained 8,000 viewers and 6,000 in 18-49. NXT had Pete Dunne & Matt Riddle vs. Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly and gained 6,000 viewers and lost 13,000 in 18-49. In the main event segment, AEW gained 114,000 viewers for Chris Jericho & Sammy Guevara vs. Adam Page & Dustin Rhodes, and gained 61,000 in 18-49. NXT had the end of the Dunne & Riddle vs. Fish & O’Reilly tag and the beginning of the Gargano-Ciampa brawl and lost 39,000 viewers and only 13,000 in 18-49. Overall in the main event, AEW had an 839,000 to 678,000 lead and a 391,000 to 253,000 edge in 18-49. The overrun with more of Gargano and Ciampa tearing up the weight room gained 133,000 viewers, likely mostly from AEW, and 49,000 in 18-49. That’s less of a gain than usual.

The Dark Side of the Ring episode on the death of Nancy Argentino, the Jimmy Snuka case, is expected to air in the fourth week. We know that they spoke with Louise and Lorraine, Argentino’s two sisters, as well as Irv Muchnick, who spent more time and effort reporting on the case.

Even though he probably wouldn’t want this out because I know similar things he’s done anonymously, but there were Go Fund Me’s set up for independent wrestlers who have lost bookings and income and significant donations were made by Jon Moxley. There are a number of people who have done things like this over the years with no fanfare and not looking for attention

In Japan, there is more concern about WWE coming in with an NXT outpost than ever before. The feeling is that every company is weakened economically and WWE with its guaranteed TV money isn’t hurt nearly as bad. This was an unforeseen situation but from a timing standpoint, if the move is made later this year, WWE has a better chance at getting a higher level of Japanese talent

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The Sheets (Friday News Edition):

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE has yet to comment on the status of whether WrestleMania is being taped next week, which we have inquired about. However, POST Wrestling learned on Friday that a message has been circulated within the company regarding how to promote WrestleMania on the WWE Network. It is being said to avoid tag lines such as “streaming live” and/or “live on WWE Network” and instead to promote the show as “Too Big for One Night”. This is not confirmation that WrestleMania is being taped but it is notable that they were omitting the term “live”. There is a preview of The Undertaker vs. AJ Styles on the website that has also been changed from “streaming live” to “streaming” when promoting the WrestleMania broadcast.

According to the Observer, only very few within WWE know the actual status for Mania's taping and none include talent.

Originally Posted by Observer The reason several Japanese companies are returning to live shows with fans this week is that at yesterday's government meeting with experts on the coronavirus, the doctors reported that the virus spreading has now been limited to three parts of Japan. In the rest of Japan, each prefectures (states) governors are to use their discretion, but the belief is that isolationism will be ending and that schools will be reopened and sports and entertainment events will be allowed. They still warned against large gatherings in small enclosed areas ... Stardom, Dragon Gate, and DDT will all be running shows in the next few days. New Japan, which was hoping to resume action on March 31 at Sumo Hall, has not made an announcement.

Originally Posted by Observer Fans will be in attendance at Stardom's Cinderella tournament next week. The one-night tournament is taking place at Korakuen Hall in Tokyo on Tuesday (March 24). "Fans will be allowed entry to the show, but will undergo a physical check, with their temperature taken," Stardom announced. "No entry will be allowed if temp is over 37°C (98.6°F). Masks will be distributed for free" ... The first round of the tournament will air live on YouTube for free starting at 5:30 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday. The full show will be available later that night on Stardom World ... Jushin Thunder Liger will be a special guest at the show.

Originally Posted by PWI Jeff Hardy mentioned on today's edition of "The Bump" that WWE will be bringing back his old singles "No More Words" by Endeverafter. Hardy mentioned in a social media post after his WWE Backstage appearance that he was working on getting the song back after fan outcry

Link: https://twitter.com/WWETheBump/statu...18961392787456

Originally Posted by PWI In 2011, The Wrestling Revolution project, headed by Hollywood film producer Jeff Katz (who worked for WCW prior to his Hollywood exploits), announced that he had a distribution deal with Image Entertainment, who also distribute the Criterion Collection movie label. The plan was for a planned 13 episode self-contained series to be distributed via DVD and streaming services. The series was filmed in October 2011 in Los Angeles at Jim Henson Studios in Los Angeles, featuring a roster of 22 talents, many of whom portrayed unique characters and personalities that were only utilized for WRP. Among those who worked the tapings were MVP, Luke Gallows, Colt Cabana, Alex Reynolds, The Amazing Red, Dr. Luther, Ken Doann, Sami Callihan, Kenny Omega, Shawn Daivari, Emil Sitoci, Ben Muth, Mike Rollins, Karl Anderson, Joey Ryan, Pat Buck, actress Tricia LaFeche, Timothy Thatcher and Kevin Matthews, among others. Then, nothing. Despite using Kickstarter to raise money for the project, Katz never delivered the product. Until today. Overnight, Katz posted the following apology and then began making all of the Raw footage from the taping free online, seeking to give fans who are stuck at home due to the coronavirus outbreak something new and unique to watch. Katz's apology:: We're all in this together. pic.twitter.com/cOB5qUqM9b — WRP (@TheWRProject) March 20, 2020 Katz has been uploading footage to this YouTube channel and is asking fans to donate $1 to the Red Cross, United Way or Habitat for Humanity if they enjoy the content. He also gave his blessing for others to take the raw footage and re-edit it themselves.

Link: https://twitter.com/TheWRProject/sta...12716983709697 , https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCin...rkFg/playlists

Originally Posted by PWI The Alabama Athletic Commission under the leadership of Executive Director Keith Warren has temporarily halted issuance of permits for pro wrestling events in the state of Alabama. The decision by the AAC was based on the statewide health order issued by Alabama Governor Kay Ivey in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The order prohibits gatherings of 25 people of more in which a six foot distance cannot be consistently maintained and will remain in effect through April 5. The commission interprets the act of having a wrestling match to be in violation of the order. Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is urging Georgians to avoid social gatherings but has issued no specific guidelines. As of today, Georgia has 287 positive COVID-19 cases in 35 counties and 10 deaths attributed to the virus.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Fite TV issued a press release noting they are offering more free and low-cost content during this period. They are also applying 50-80% discounts on past pay-per-view events on the streaming service. They will also allow for a free trial of AEW Plus in all available territories to new subscribers. Below is a portion of the release: Starting today, we are offering a free trial on the AEW Plus subscription package in all available territories to new subscribers, and a free linear combat sports channel called FITE 24/7 across all FITE platforms globally, for all users. In the next few weeks we’ll announce distribution news bringing additional access to FITE programming to more fans, as well as more initiatives to offer free content. Many thanks to all our partners for making this possible.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Matt Hardy is the guest on Talk is Jericho today and spoke about his decision to join AEW. He noted how the plan was for himself and Brodie Lee to debut in Rochester, New York as a double surprise. Jericho added that due to restrictions, they would not have been allowed to fly Vanguard 1 into the arena in Rochester, but they could at the empty Daily’s Place. Hardy reiterated that WWE made him a good offer to stay but felt he would be minimalized and wants to enjoy everything he is doing for the last 3-4 years of his in-ring career.

Originally Posted by Fightful IMPACT will present a TNA special on Mar. 31 on AXS TV. The one-hour special will have old-school TNA branding and new matches with past TNA stars. The special was taped at the recent IMPACT tapings in Atlanta, GA. IMPACT was set to host TNA: There's No Place Like Home during WrestleMania week, but the event was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event was scheduled for Friday, Apr. 3. Past TNA stars such as Petey Williams, Shark Boy, Scott Steiner, Amazing Red, Aces & Eights, and Chris Harris were scheduled for the event. An Ultimate X match and King of the Mountain match were scheduled for the event.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE stock opened at $36.30 when the stock market opened

Closed at $36.50 for after-hours trading.

Originally Posted by Fightful Matt Hardy's AEW debut is now already the 10th most watched video on AEW's YouTube channel.

Originally Posted by Fightful Edge is set for his first WrestleMania match in nine years when he clashes with Randy Orton in a Last Man Standing match at WrestleMania 36. Unlike past WrestleMania matches Edge has competed in, this one will be totally different as it will take place with no live audience due to the coronavirus pandemic. Speaking to Metro UK, Edge discussed why WWE continues to run shows and how they create an escape for fans. "This year more than any year we are all in the midst of something we have never experienced before, the world really needs outlets. Whether that is books, whether that is movies, whatever it is, just to be able to try and forget and laugh and have fun and remember what it is to be human. As long we can try and be as responsible and as safe as we can, why wouldn’t we try and do this for everyone? As a performer, that’s what we want to do. ‘If we can do that and if people watch and can have fun for a few hours then our mission is accomplished. Here’s how I’ve always looked at this job. My responsibility is to make you forget your responsibilities for two or three hours a day, or during that show," he said.

Originally Posted by PWI Vice TV has released the first half of Dark Side of the Ring's Chris Benoit documentary online early in advance of the entire episode's debut this Tuesday 3/24. You can view it below

TPWW Frontpage:

• The XFL Officially Cancels Its Season
• ESPN to Air Old WrestleManias for Next Three Sundays

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Originally Posted by Observer After three straight WWE TV shows did strong ratings after pulling out of tapings with crowds, the string ended last night. Raw last night averaged 2.01 million viewers, dropping 14 percent from last week, even with airing classic PPV matches of Brock Lesnar vs. John Cena vs. Seth Rollins from Royal Rumble 2015 and Charlotte Flair vs. Asuka from WrestleMania 34. While little stock should be put into these numbers under the circumstances, the third hour doing 1.73 million viewers was the least-watched hour of Raw programming of the modern era with the exception of hour three on the December 23 episode. That includes the late 2018 Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve shows. The overall number beat only those two shows historically, as well as the December 23 Christmas week taped show in 2019. The first-to-third hour drop of 24.6 percent was the second biggest drop in the history of the show, trailing only the November 11, 2019 episode against the NFL ... The audience was down 23 percent from the same week last year. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.29 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.00 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.73 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Rusev posted a tweet today pledging to donate $20,000 to help support those in the extended WWE family who are sitting at home without income: “In Bulgaria we say ‘It's not a lot but it’s from the heart’ I pledge 20,000$ to any of my WWE extended family that are sitting at home without income. WE can’t do it without y’all. Production, security, etc. LOVE YALL.”

Originally Posted by Observer Fozzy’s spring tour of the United States has been rescheduled to the summer. It begins in July, ends in September, and still has no dates taking place on Wednesdays or Tuesdays. Chris Jericho said about the rescheduling: "In light of the pandemic that's gripping the world's attention, it's time to make the right move and postpone the April/May leg of ‘Save the World’ Tour for everyone's safety and well being. However, we promise you, once the World is back on its axis and TRULY saved, Fozzy will be back to hold you in our loving arms and literally ROCK all your troubles away!! See everybody soon and in the meantime and between time, please stay healthy and safe. We will get through this together."

Originally Posted by PWI Tommy Dreamer and Chavo Guerrero will be appearing on the Dark Side of the Ring post-show discussion on Vice TV tonight following the Chris Benoit documentary episode airing. Next week's episode of Dark Side of the Ring will be devoted to former ECW star New Jack.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE filed a Form 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission today. The purpose was to give WWE more liquidity while their business is subjected to conditions stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak. This is the important part of the filing: Item 8.01. Other Events. On March 24, 2020, Vincent K. McMahon (“Mr. McMahon”), Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (the “Company”), entered into a variable prepaid forward contract with an unaffiliated bank (the “Bank”) covering approximately 3.5 million shares of the Company’s Class B common stock. The variable prepaid forward contract is scheduled to settle on specified dates in March 2024, at which time the actual number of shares of the Company’s Class A common stock to be delivered by Mr. McMahon will be determined based on the price of the Company’s Class A common stock on such dates, with the aggregate number not to exceed approximately 3.5 million shares, which is the number of shares of Class B common stock pledged by Mr. McMahon to secure his obligations under the contract. Subject to certain conditions, Mr. McMahon can also elect to settle the variable prepaid forward contract in cash and thereby retain full ownership of the pledged shares. Mr. McMahon entered into the variable prepaid forward contract to provide current liquidity while allowing him to maintain voting and ordinary dividend rights in the stock, as well as the ability to participate in future stock price appreciation, during the term of the contract and thereafter if Mr. McMahon settles the variable prepaid forward contract in cash. The shares covered by the variable prepaid forward contract represent approximately 4.5% of the Company’s total outstanding shares of Class A and Class B common stock. The variable prepaid forward contract does not apply to the approximately 25,198,344 other shares of Class B common stock beneficially owned by Mr. McMahon. Those shares represent approximately 70.5% of the Company’s total voting power. The variable prepaid forward contract contains a 60-day lock-up restricting Mr. McMahon’s ability to sell or transfer additional shares of the Company’s common stock during such period without the Bank’s prior approval. Mr. McMahon has informed us that he intends to continue in his capacity as the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for the foreseeable future.

Originally Posted by PWI After fans in Saudi Arabia noted they were no longer able to access the WWE Network and asked for assistance via social media, WWE responded with the following: Hi! Thank you for reaching out. Our sincerest apologies for the inconvenience. WWE Network will not be available in Saudi Arabia until further notice. For more information, you may go to https://t.co/UqSN95m7gL. Thanks! ^NN — Ask WWE Network (@AskWWENetwork) March 24, 2020

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Brian Pillman Jr. appeared on The Wrestling INC Daily Podcast and Pillman Jr. talked about the idea of his father, Brian Pillman Sr. possibly going into the WWE Hall Of Fame as a part of the 2021 class in California. Pillman Jr. said it has been something that his family has communicated with WWE about and it’s all a matter of it coming to fruition. “Yeah I think that’s a possibility. I wanna say my mom’s talked to them about it in the past, but it’s not something that we talked about with them everyday. It’s something we’d have to revisit, revisit that conversation but yeah, obviously with Davey Boy getting in, then there’s a lot of good press towards that, right? So if they’re gonna let Davey Boy in, he’s in the faction with me. Maybe they save my dad for another year, maybe they bring my dad in-in Los Angeles [WrestleMania 37] in Hollywood so, The Hollywood Blonds and that would be a really cool thematic… maybe The Rock comes in so, I had somebody say that. Like Pillman and The Rock, and if you look, they always try to do — as weird as it sounds, they try to do one dead person a year, to try to keep it balanced.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Newsweek conducted an interview with Chris Jericho to promote the premiere of Chris Benoit’s ‘Dark Side of the Ring’ full-length episode on March 24th on VICE. Jericho said that if Chavo Guerrero didn’t ask him to be a part of the series, he wouldn’t have participated at all. “If it was anyone else that wasn’t Chavo Guerrero, I would have said no. But when Chavo said what the plan was, I was all for it because he was just as close to Chris and Eddie as I was, and then I was able to bring Dean Malenko, and David and Sandra were involved. There’s no way I wouldn’t have done it once I found out they were involved. There’s no way I wouldn’t have done it once I found out all these people who were super close were involved in it to tell the story the right way.” Jericho agreed that Chris Benoit does not deserve to go into the Hall Of Fame but he does feel that Nancy Benoit should be inducted into a Hall Of Fame for her contributions to the business prior to meeting Chris Benoit. “Will Chris Benoit ever get into the Hall of Fame? Absolutely not, nor should he. There’s too much baggage to discuss. But if you’re looking from a professional and ability standpoint, he’s one of the greatest of all time. Nancy had a great career before she ever met Chris. She was great at what she did and it gets lost in the shuffle because people always focus on her death. But when you focus on her life, she’s the one career that should go into the Hall of Fame because she deserves it. All the baggage will make it hard for her to be in, but I still think the right thing to do is put her in. She deserves that as a person and a professional.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per F4WOnline’s Daily Update, talents that are traveling to Japan from the U.S., U.K. or Mexico can travel to the country but have to be quarantined for 14 days when they arrive. Davey Boy Smith Jr., who’ll be in competing in All Japan Pro Wrestling’s ‘Champion Carnival’ tournament was used as an example.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Sporting News pushed out their interview with Chris Jericho. Jericho said while filming Dark Side of the Ring, the story of New Jack was one that completely caught him off guard and he couldn’t believe what he was hearing/reading about New Jack. “The New Jack story blew my mind because I knew him a little bit from ECW. Just the stuff that he did, you know, attempting to murder guys in the ring, stabbing guys during matches and just literally not giving a s—. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this guy isn’t in jail or didn’t get murdered because of the things that he did.’ So, that was pretty heavy. The one that I really enjoyed though, that I didn’t think I would, was the ‘Brawl for All’ because I remember the ‘Brawl for All’ but I wasn’t in WWE at the time. But just watching the whole storyline behind that and just how it basically ended Bart Gunn’s career in the States, even though he won it, it was just a really interesting kind of time capsule of what wrestling was like only 20 years ago, 23 years ago, and it was really interesting to watch it.”

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Hall of Famer Koko B. Ware has been informed he will have to undergo a knee replacement surgery. A GoFund Me Campaign has been launched to help assist him with the financial aspect of the surgery. If you would like to contribute to the campaign, you can click here.

Link for those interested: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-koko...ee-replacement

Originally Posted by Fightful NJPW President Harold Meij is watching how AEW grows with some interest. Speculation about a potential partnership between NJPW and AEW ran rampant in January at Wrestle Kingdom 14 when Chris Jericho faced Hiroshi Tanahashi and if Tanahashi had won, then he would have gotten an AEW World Championship opportunity. Jericho won the match and no such title opportunity was given. Still, there are some who believe that NJPW and AEW could work with each other down the line and Meij addressed AEW in an interview with Sports Illustrated. Meij credited AEW for what it has been able to accomplish in the short time it has been running and will watch AEW with interest, but did not comment on any potential dealings down the line. "Throughout our 50-year history we have had numerous relationships with other wrestling promotions. Japanese mentality is one of loyalty. We work under a long-term principle that, ‘Once in, you’re in for a lifetime.’ AEW has made tremendous inroads and is establishing their unique brand of wrestling with their vision of what wrestling should be. We continue to watch with interest how AEW continues to evolve their brand," Meij said.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Coronavirus Updates: NJPW Cancels Sakura Genesis, Impact Cancels Several Events, No ROH Events Until June
• Trailer Released for Big Show’s Netflix Sitcom
• Matches Planned for NXT TakeOver Will Air on NXT TV Instead
• AEW: Matt Hardy’s Drone, No Lumberjack Match, Cody on Commentary This Week
• Rey Mysterio and Dana Brooke in Quarantine as a Precaution
• WWE Giving Free Access to WWE Network for a “Limited Time”

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Originally Posted by Fightful The main event(s) of WrestleMania were still in the air, or at least that's the impression that was given. With WWE WrestleMania 36 heavily shifting, this left WWE in a position to pick not just one, but two main events. The show has been moved to two nights, giving the company the first time to advertise two show closers in history. Fightful sources stated that because of the fact that they have multiple options, it's actually created more of a dialogue as to what should close each night. You can see our Fightful Select report below. There was plenty of back and forth over the past week over what would main event the two nights of WrestleMania. At one point, Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler was set to main event night one. However, there is word there was a push for Reigns and Goldberg to be in that spot. When Fightful reached out to a WWE source, they indicated that a lot of things are being tossed around because they can make about anything happen with the way they're filming it. Realistically, WWE could even wait until they see how each match turned out before deciding on what would main event either night. It should be noted that WrestleVotes tweeted that they'd heard Goldberg vs. Roman Reigns was set to close night one.

Originally Posted by Observer Impact Wrestling has announced the lineup for their TNA special that will be airing on AXS TV next week. The one-hour special is airing at 10 p.m. Eastern time next Tuesday (March 31), which is right after next week's regular Impact episode. The special was supposed to come in advance of TNA: There's No Place Like Home taking place in Tampa on Friday, April 3, but that show and all WrestleCon events have been canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Rhino vs. Madman Fulton, Hernandez vs. Chase Stevens, and Kid Kash & Johnny Swinger vs. Suicide & Manik will air on next week's special. Scott Steiner will also appear "with a live microphone in hand, to offer his honest, unfiltered thoughts on the latest in-ring happenings, as the wrestling legend presents a special segment of Scott Steiner Uncensored." These matches were filmed during Impact's television tapings in Atlanta earlier this month.

Originally Posted by Observer AEW has revealed this week's set of top-five roster rankings: Men's division -- Champion: Jon Moxley (7-0 singles record in 2020, 12-2-1 overall record) Chris Jericho (0-1 singles record in 2020, 11-3-1 overall record) MJF (3-0 singles record in 2020, 8-1 overall record) Cody (4-1 singles record in 2020, 11-5-1 overall record) Jake Hager (3-0 singles record in 2020, 4-0 overall record) Kenny Omega (1-0 singles record in 2020, 17-6 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (4-1 singles record in 2020, 9-4 overall record) Hikaru Shida (5-1 singles record in 2020, 10-5 overall record) Kris Statlander (2-3 singles record in 2020, 6-6 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) Riho (3-3 singles record in 2020, 11-6 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (6-0 tag team record in 2020, 17-6 overall record for Omega, 13-9 overall record for Page) The Dark Order (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 9-3 overall record for Evil Uno, 9-4 overall record for Stu Grayson) The Young Bucks (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 12-9 overall record for Nick Jackson, 12-9 overall record for Matt Jackson) SCU (2-3 tag team record in 2020, 16-7 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 16-6 overall record for Frankie Kazarian) The Lucha Bros (1-2 tag team record in 2020, 10-9 overall record for Pentagon Jr., 11-9 overall record for Fenix) Best Friends (3-3 tag team record in 2020, 9-13 overall record for Trent Barreta, 8-11 overall record for Chuck Taylor)

Originally Posted by PWI As of today, Samoa Joe's WWE Wellness Policy suspension has passed and he would once again be available for WWE once he is written back into company storylines. While not likely, that means it's possible he could appear in some form at Wrestlemania 36 when it is taped this week and broadcast on 4/5 and 4/6.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE is facing another class action lawsuit as the law firm Pomerantz LLP is investigating claims on behalf of WWE investors that WWE and certain officers or directors engaged in securities fraud or unlawful business practices, which led to the company’s drop in stock price and disappointing quarterly financial results ... Paul Szaniawski and Robbins Geller Rudman filed a class action lawsuits against WWE that alleged that WWE made false and misleading claims when it came to its relationship with the Saudi government. WWE is also facing a lawsuit in regards to patent infringement over WWE Network technology.

Link: https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/w...ness-practices

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Prior to part two of Chris Benoit’s Dark Side of the Ring episode airing on VICE, David Benoit joined Bully Ray and David LaGreca on Busted Open Radio. David Benoit stated that he did not want Matthew Randazzo in the documentary. Matthew is the man who wrote the book ‘Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit & The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry’. “They [ran] things by me but that’s one I didn’t expect… it bothered me a lot. I didn’t expect to see those pictures, I guess you could say, and what’s his name? He’s on the show. I didn’t want him on there but you know… I think his name is Matthew [Randazzo]. He wrote a book about my dad [Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit & The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry].” David spoke about how he felt after the documentary wrapped up. He said he let 13 years of feelings out during that documentary and felt like a new person after he let everything out. “I let 13 years of pain go away when I sat there in front of that camera. I let it all out and I felt like a new man. I got to select everyone I wanted so, Dean, Chris [Jericho], Vickie. Those were the main people I picked so…” During the chat, David opened up about returning to WWE for the first time since the loss of his family. He said he got back into wrestling to support Natalya and Chris Jericho and the likes of Kalisto and Sasha Banks caught his eyes while he was getting back into the sport. “Yeah, I fell out of wrestling for a couple of years. I went back in 2011, to WWE for the first time and I saw Vince for the first time too, and then I fell — I didn’t really watch it. I watched it for Natalya and Chris [Jericho] and some of the other guys like Kalisto, Sasha Banks, and then I fell in love with AEW when I first went to their show Double Or Nothing in Vegas. I got lost in the moment with all the storytelling and everything was just good. It reminded me of the old days.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Joel Redman, Lucas Steele and Davey Boy Smith Jr. will not be competing in this year’s All Japan Pro Wrestling ‘Champion Carnival’ tournament due to travel issues relating to Coronavirus.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per the Fightful Wrestling Weekly, the IMPACT Wrestling roster has not been informed about the rescheduling of their throwback show that was set for WrestleMania weekend. Many within the company are optimistic that it could happen considering the buzz it got. Also, with the cancellation of their Rebellion pay-per-view, a source told the site that they are unsure of the direction the company will be heading in with so much of the remaining episodes of IMPACT TV being focused around the Rebellion pay-per-view.

Originally Posted by Fightful Although Brie Bella is at home with her daughter, her husband Daniel Bryan is currently wrestling for WWE in Orlando, Florida and she is worried. On a recent episode of “The Bellas Podcast,” Brie would go on to reveal that Bryan actually has an autoimmune disease and given the coronavirus outbreak that has affected many countries around the world, including the United States, Brie is understandably concerned. WWE has temporarily moved Raw and SmackDown to the WWE Performance Center in Orlando. “I have to say, my husband is still working and he’s in Orlando right now and granted, he’s working and he has a job, but it makes me really nervous. My husband has an autoimmune disease. He also fought asthma really bad when he was young. He was always sick when he was a kid. I admit. I lost sleep last night. I’m grateful my husband is still employed but at the same time, I’m really scared that he’s just there all the time. I’m just praying so much that he’s staying healthy and all that. It’s like this weird tug of war right now,” Brie said.

Originally Posted by PWI The video above features rare footage from the second Earl Caddock-Joe Stecher match for the professional wrestling world title, held on January, 30th,1920 at the second Madison Square Garden in New York City. Stecher pinned Caddock in 2:05:00 (again, NOT a typo) using a wristlock and his finishing hold, the body scissors, so this is not the complete bout. It is, however, some the oldest professional wrestling match footage that was filmed and still exists today.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Dark Side of the Ring Ratings: All-Time Ratings High for Benoit Episode
• Vince McMahon Sells Millions of Shares of WWE Stock, Stock Price Drops Again

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Originally Posted by Observer AEW Dynamite averaged 819,000 viewers last night for their episode that aired from Daily's Place in Jacksonville with only essential personnel on hand. The show finished 23rd in the 18-49 demo with a 0.34 rating. The audience total was down 12 percent from last week, but Dynamite was only down three percent in the key demo. Both the viewership and rating number were right in line with the average over the last 10 weeks. Over on the USA Network, NXT was up 23 percent from last week's series low and averaged 669,000 viewers. In the 18-49 demo, NXT again finished out of the top 50 but climbed to 56th with a 0.20 rating, up 25 percent from last week. Last week's NXT featured a modified format without any matches. This week's show had matches that were taped at Full Sail Live, also with only essential personnel in attendance. Detailed demo ratings are not available for NXT since it was outside the top 50, but for Dynamite its strongest category, as usual, was men 18-49, where the show did a 0.45 rating. That was 10th on cable in that demo.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling AEW averaged 819,000 viewers with a 0.34 in the 18-49 demo on Wednesday night. They were down from 839,000 viewers last week, although last week only did 0.31 in the key demographic. The big drop for AEW came with adults over 50, which declined 24% from last week.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE has added another presentation in what is being called the "WWE Essentials" video series to WWE Network this morning. Today the streaming service added a five and a half hour-plus compilation titled "The 10 Biggest Matches In WrestleMania History" hosted by Matt Camp. As previously reported, over the last few days WWE has uploaded talent-centric compilations featuring signature matches for Becky Lynch and Roman Reigns.

Originally Posted by PWI Much in the same vein as the "Roman Reigns Greatest WrestleMania Matches" compilation added yesterday, WWE has added "Becky Lynch's Five Best Raw Women's Title Matches" to WWE Network. The compilation presentation is hosted by WWE digital correspondent and cohost of "The Bump" Matt Camp and clocks in at about two hours runtime. It definitely looks like the company will be releasing more of these in the next few days as they are now being grouped together on the service. It is a smart move. Now that the bulk of the content has gone free for the time being. This gives new viewers a place to really delve into their favorite superstar, much in the same way the old Collections did on the former iteration of WWE Network.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE referee Steve Armstrong disclosed that his father, WWE Hall of Famer Bob Armstrong, who was one of the all-time best babyfaces in the Southeast and a major player in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, has been diagnosed with cancer but has chosen not to undergo treatment. Armstrong, always renowned for his strength, remains incredibly strong, as Armstrong showed on social media: Today my 80yr old Dad, @WWE Hall of Famer Bullet Bob, asked if he could come over to get a workout! He’s got bone cancer in his ribs, shoulder and prostate and chose not to go through any treatment (his choice)! I put 30lbs on there and he said, “Gimme 100lbs!!! #Motivation ???? pic.twitter.com/yhfda0AGqA — Scott Armstrong (@WWEArmstrong) March 25, 2020

Link: https://twitter.com/WWEArmstrong/sta...92922263134215

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced that Japan is placing an entry ban on foreigners from 21 European countries and Iran to contain the spread of the coronavirus.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc Earlier today, Pro Wrestling Noah announced that their Yokohama show tomorrow will be cancelled. The move came after the Governor of Kanagawa asked for a lockdown to slow down the spread of COVID-19. Soon after, many other promotions in Japan announced cancellations of their shows as well including Dragon Gate and Big Japan Pro Wrestling. All Japan Pro Wrestling announced yesterday that Joel Redman, Lucas Steele and Davey Boy Smith Jr will not be competing in this year's Champion Carnival due to travel issues relating to COVID-19. This year's Champion Carnival is scheduled for April. Noah went further in their announcements. They also announced that they will be cancelling all their scheduled their events from the end of March and April to May.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling A report from Raj Giri at Wrestling Inc. states that Teddy Hart was arrested again on Thursday in Richmond, Virginia. Online records list Edward Annis being booked on Thursday at 1:15 pm but no additional details are listed. Wrestler Ace Montana posted a video accusing Hart of attacking ROH performer Maria Manic, which Hart denied in the video. Montana wrote the following online: I literally had to pull my gun on #Teddyhart and throw him out of my friends house. This piece of shit literally choked out and physically assaulted Maria Manic and would not let her get help. she texted me I’m in danger never ever did I think I would meet a piece of shit like this guy who has now been arrested with a felony against him. I don’t think this guy knew how close to death he was. #fuckyouteddyheart This video is me kick him out before the cops came and arrested him. Mike Johnson reports that Hart is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow at 8:45 am.

Link: https://www.wrestlinginc.com/news/20...-photo-668401/

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Wednesday night’s edition of Dynamite featured live and taped content throughout the body of the show. They did tape a lot of content and had heard they continued taping after Dynamite went off the air Wednesday night.

Observer's Dave Meltzer also reported that AEW taped a lot of content pre- and post-Dynamite beyond just stuff as insurance for next week. Might have also been taping on Tuesday based on a recent tweet from Cody Rhodes.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the most recent edition of ‘This Card is Going to Change’, AIW owner and promoter John Thorne discussed the mounting issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and how it’s impacting his business. He addressed the status of ‘The Collective’ series of shows, which AIW was a part of for WrestleMania Weekend in Tampa and how WrestleMania opting to move forward instead of postponing the event had hurt them: Everything right now on ‘The Collective’ front, is we’re in a holding pattern. Obviously, we want to go forward, and we want to do something. We have no idea what to do because this information hit us in a shock because we were all anticipating, like, the MLB season is suspended or postponed, or the NBA season is suspended or postponed. We were all anticipating WrestleMania will also be suspended or postponed and then, once they announce the new date then ‘The Collective’, we had a hold on the building, we could try to move that deposit elsewhere for other dates which would coincide with the new WrestleMania dates. When they said they were going forward with no fans, which nobody in the f***king world would have ever guessed that they would give up that all that money just to go forward, you know, we don’t know what to do at this point. I have no answer on that honestly. There is a plan to do something at someday eventually, but we just don’t know because you can’t make a plan for anything right now. We have a show on April 24th that we don’t even know if it’ll be allowed to go or not. We have a show in May in Akron that we don’t know if it will go or not. You can’t also go book the makeup dates now because who knows? This thing could be over next week, it could be over on Labor Day weekend, we don’t know how long the country is going to be in this sense of disarray with no idea on what’s going to happen.

Originally Posted by Ringside News PW Insider Elite audio noted that the company is sending out surveys to fans who cancel their WWE Network subscriptions. There is a survey attached with some very interesting questions. The survey asked if participants want more NXT content on the WWE Network. They asked about the possibility of airing NXT live on the WWE Network every Wednesday. They also asked if there is any interest in airing NXT live house shows.

Originally Posted by Fightful Before Matt Hardy returned to WWE with his brother Jeff at WrestleMania 33, he nearly brought ROH and TNA/IMPACT together. The night before his WWE return, Matt competed alongside Jeff at ROH Supercard Of Honor XI against The Young Bucks in a ladder match. The match ended up being the culmination of the feud that was supposed to be more spread out than it turned out to be. "[The Young Bucks and I] have been friends ever since I had my run in TNA. We had worked together to come up with an angle where we were gonna have TNA and Ring of Honor working hand-in-hand. We were going to do this whole angle with the Hardyz and Young Bucks from the Broken Matt stuff. We started that when I showed up at Final Battle. Then, we showed up when our [TNA] contracts ran out and still came to Ring of Honor and beat them for the tag titles. We were going to do a three-four month program that was going to span across ROH and TNA television. The reason it didn't happen was because of Jeff Jarrett. He came in, Anthem had just bought TNA, Jarrett was in a bad place in his life with his issues. And he was the one who caused the issues that shut it down. Then I talked to Triple H when our deal was up and we ended up returning to WWE because we had a good offer," said Matt Hardy on Talk is Jericho with Chris Jericho.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling This is a significant date in wrestling history with the final episode of WCW Monday Nitro occurring on March 26, 2001.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Below is the trailer for next week’s Dark Side of the Ring episode covering New Jack, which airs next Tuesday at 10 pm Eastern on Vice TV and streaming on Crave in Canada:

TPWW Frontpage:

• NXT UK TakeOver: Dublin Postponed
• Killer Kross Appears in a Video on NXT

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

I’m not sure if this is a mistake, well, actually I am sure, but there is advertising in some places listing the price for the 4/4 WrestleMania show on PPV as $9.99 and the 4/5 show as $59.99.

Both WWE and UFC got greater exposure over the weekend with ESPN looking for prime time programming, and had the station’s two most-watched shows of the weekend. WWE aired WrestleMania 30 from New Orleans, the 2014 show built around Daniel Bryan winning the WWE title and Brock Lesnar ending Undertaker’s streak. The deal was put together last minute, but doing so does show a relationship between the two sides. It is not a lock that WWE will make a streaming deal with ESPN+, as the sides were said to be apart on money. WrestleMania 30 aired in prime time from 7-11 p.m. Eastern on 3/22, and WrestleMania 32 from Irving, TX, will air on 3/29. WWE will also air last year’s WrestleMania 35 on 4/5 from 3-7 p.m. as a direct lead-in to the show. On the first show, they did wrap-arounds with Tom Phillips and Corey Graves, and the show was filled with WrestleMania commercials and plugs for this year’s show and for the WWE Network. It actually felt watching it like you were watching a time-buy, because of all the plugs. It probably wasn’t that, since they did the same thing the day before with UFC. But it was clear ESPN was hands off because of the nature of the wrap-arounds being all WWE-speak ... WWE also reached a deal with Sportsnet in Canada to air past WrestleManias starting on 3/29 with WrestleMania 30.

WWE has announced that for a limited time, the WWE Network is free. This appears to be through WrestleMania. The new free aspect is open to everyone. It will not be for complete access. It will be for only a portion of the VOD library. What will be accessible is every WrestleMania, every Royal Rumble, every SummerSlam and every Survivor Series, every Takeover and UK Takeover, all the WWE 24 documentaries, all the Steve Austin Broken Skull Challenge shows, the WWE Ruthless Aggression documentary, the Monday Night Wars documentary series, the WWE Untold shows, the recent Florida Championship Wrestling documentary and recent episodes of Raw and Smackdown. This is actually less than what the company does regularly as far as a free first month. It’s also open to everyone who had been a prior subscriber or had gotten a prior free order, where is the free month, at least in theory, was only a one-time thing, although people have learned to negotiate the system. You still have to sign up for it and put a credit card in. They are pushing that you can get both nights of WrestleMania free. But over the last month before WrestleMania it’s always pushed that you can get WrestleMania free, with the idea that the people who sign up will either like it, or forget to cancel, and thus the amount of paid subscribers increase greatly over the month or so after WrestleMania.

On 3/25, AEW did 819,000 viewers and a 0.34 in 18-49, while NXT, with new matches, did 619,000 viewers and a 0.20 in 18-49 ... My gut is that NXT was hurt by last week’s show. News shows numbers are through the roof and the constant empty arena shows have started to hurt ratings even with more people home watching television. Smackdown may be the lone beneficiary because unlike weeknights where a lot of people don’t go out, and while TV viewers are up, Friday viewership is way up with people not going out, and the networks and news channels as opposed to secondary channels will benefit more from this. AEW was down 12.1 percent overall from last week but only down 2.9 percent in 18-49. NXT was up 23.4 percent overall and 25.0 percent in 18-49 over last week’s video package show. Most of the AEW decline was in viewers over the age of 50. The show did a 0.11 in 12-17 (down 15.4 percent), 0.18 in 18-34 (down 5.3 percent), 0.50 in 35-49 (down 2.0 percent) and 0.29 in 50+ (down 23.7 percent) ... Because NXT wasn’t in the top 50 in 18-49 for the day, other details on their numbers won’t be available until next week’s issue.

There isn’t the significance in the 3/18 ratings given world events. AEW got a good number with an empty arena show. As noted last week, there are a number of variables in play. More people were home, but far more were watching the news. There was no NBA and NXT didn’t run any new matches. AEW also promised the reveal of The Exalted One after a several month build. NXT didn’t run a live show, so it could be the AEW increase had more to do with NXT not competing, since the total audience watching wrestling was down, but AEW had a higher share of that audience ... AEW opened with 982,000 viewers and 476,000 in 18-49 with the promo of Cody, Kenny Omega, Matt Jackson and a later promo of MJF. NXT opened with 637,000 viewers and 281,000 in 18-49 for part one of the Johnny Gargano-Tommaso Ciampa marathon video profile. In the second quarter, AEW lost 26,000 viewers and 28,000 in 18-49 with Pentagon Jr. & Rey Fenix vs. Best Friends. NXT lost 98,000 viewers and 65,000 in 18-49 for more of the Ciampa-Gargano video. In the third quarter, AEW lost 9,000 viewers but gained 3,000 in 18-49 for Hikaru Shida’s four-way win over Riho, Kris Statlander and Penelope Ford, plus the Colt Cabana interview slapping Kip Sabian. NXT lost 49,000 viewers and 23,000 in 18-49 for more Gargano-Ciampa. In the fourth quarter, AEW lost 73,000 viewers and 52,000 in 18-49 for the Jon Moxley promo and Jungle Boy & Luchasaurus vs. Butcher & Blade. NXT lost 18,000 viewers and 16,000 in 18-49 for more Gargano-Ciampa. In the fifth quarter, AEW gained 18,000 viewers and 32,000 in 18-49 for the end of the tag match and the Dark Order reveal. NXT gained 106,000 viewers and 35,000 in 18-49 for the ending of the Gargano-Ciampa video. In the sixth quarter, AEW gained 49,000 viewers and 51,000 in 18-49 for the Jake Roberts promo and the Peanut Butter Falcon knockoff Lance Archer video. NXT lost 5,000 viewers and 7,000 in 18-49 for the first part of the Finn Balor profile. In the seventh quarter, AEW stayed even in viewers but lost 16,000 in 18-49 for the first part of the Cody & Matt Jackson & Adam Page vs. Jake Hager & Santana & Ortiz match. NXT lost 35,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49 for the second part of the Balor profile. In the final quarter, AEW lost 15,000 viewers but gained 8,000 in 18-49 for the remainder of the six-man tag match. NXT lost 29,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49 for the Rhea Ripley profile video. The 926,000 to 509,000 viewer gap during this quarter had to be the biggest in months.

There was one thing on 3/18 that was positive for having an empty arena show outdoors is they were able to fly the drone to precede the Matt Hardy introduction. They would not have been able to do so indoors in Rochester so that was never planned. But when things changed someone came up with that idea since there was no audience and they were outdoors

Raw on 3/23 did 2,006,000 viewers, the lowest ever for a live episode of the series ... The audience started low, but tuned out in new record numbers, as the first-to-third hour drop was 24.6 percent, the second largest in history, trailing the 11/11 show which went against a monster NFL game. The audience was down 14.1 percent from last week and 22.5 percent from the same week one year ago ... The first hour did 2,289,000 viewers. The second hour did 2,004,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,726,000 viewers. The third hour was the second lowest-watched hour of a Raw broadcast in modern history, beating only the third hour of the 12/23 taped show. Overall, the only shows that this show beat were December 24, 1998, December 31, 1998 and December 23, 1999.

Smackdown on 3/20 did a 1.54 rating and 2,569,000 viewers (1.38 viewers per home), the second best number so far this year for viewers. The show did an 0.8 in 18-49 ... The increase is more due to so many more people at home, particularly 18-49, and all the network stations but CBS were up. Smackdown tied for second behind Shark Tank at 1.1 in the 18-49 demo, but in 25-54, which is the other key Friday night demo that a lot of advertisers on that night look for, it beat only a rerun of Blue Bloods on CBS and was behind all the other shows. For total viewers, other than Smackdown, no network show did less than 4,011,000. Last year at this time FOX did 3,418,000 viewers and a 0.6, but it was a very different time with less people home and NCAA basketball going on.

Regarding The Revival, there were reports that Scott Dawson’s contract has expired because he tweeted “free at last,” but officially it has not. But it’s just a few weeks away from expiring. As noted last week, because The Revival had already surpassed the downside figure on their contracts and are no longer being booked, they haven’t received a paycheck in nearly two months. A lot of the talent would fall into the category as if they were above their downside, they wouldn’t be getting paid right now except for days worked. Some, like Slater, made sure that their $400,000 downside was paid bi-weekly as opposed to agreeing to take the regular payments every other week based on house shows and merch. For the others, and this is the vast majority, if you don’t make your downside you get the lump sum at the end of the year so if there is a long shutdown, most of the talent won’t be paid until later. With Slater, since he’s rarely booked, he probably wouldn’t be having $8,000 weeks based on his spot and the number of shows he works and merch he sells, so it made sense for him to ask for that option. While everything is different now, for The Revival, they went from wanting to give them the comedy gimmick and starting that story, to cool them off, similar to Matt Hardy’s being buried on departure, to just not using them. That put the pressure on them to sign because they weren’t getting paid and even though Dawson’s deal is up in a few weeks, Wilder’s won’t be until mid-June, so that’s the earliest they could sign elsewhere. So they’d have to not make any money until mid-June unless they sign new deals and also ask to be paid ahead if that would even be an option, because even if they signed and were re-booked, there’s no lock there will be shows to be paid off. So this does put great economic pressure on both right now. It actually does on a lot of people if those goes a significant length of time

Arn Anderson, on his podcast, said what everyone pretty much knew anyway from listening, about how at WrestleMania 32, Vince McMahon specifically directed the announcers to bury Sting and WCW in the match with HHH. “All it did was give the announcers, and I know this was fed to them, they just buried Sting. `Minnow in a big pond,’ just total condescending, ‘Guy’s out of his element.’ `This is WrestleMania now.’ `You’re just a small minnow in a huge lake.’” I don’t remember it being that hard, but it was amazing to listen to at the time and quite obvious that Vince was still fighting a war that had ended in 2001

Regarding the ability to tape weekly, it’s noted that Jacksonville’s largest coronavirus testing center will be in the parking lot of HIAA Field, about 100 yards from where they are taping at Daily’s Place. Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry also talked about cracking down on businesses and employees taking unnecessary risks. AEW has been working with the city regarding the ability to continue to use Daily’s Place for taping each week. As the show was being taped, the only people around were the wrestlers in the one room for the skits, those in the open-aired building, a few production people outside the building in the truck, and Tony Khan as the only person backstage handling Gorilla and timing the show ... Khan also noted that last week was by far the toughest week in the history of the company as far as being able to rewrite, gather talent and put together a show, because some talent couldn’t come in, some talent opted not to come in and there were so many restrictions put on how many people could be there. Most likely with more restrictions on travel and pressure regarding social gatherings coming from the outside, that this week would have ended up even tougher. Last week they brought in a number of independent wrestlers for a combination of what you’d call tryout matches, that were taped for Dark and they did as much as taping as they could. While they don’t have the library that WWE has, where WWE can go forever and put great matches from the past on television and never run out, they would have enough product to fill television easily for three months while doing wrap-arounds from their studio.

In Japan, most of the sports talk revolved around the 2020 Olympics, which on 3/24, were officially postponed until 2021 in a joint statement between Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe ad IOC President Thomas Bach ... The country took that news hard, because it was a sign to the public that things are not going smoothly and that the current situation is not going to end this week or in a few weeks. After 41 new cases came up in Tokyo on 3/25, up from 16 on 3/23 and 17 on 3/24, Gov. Yuriko Koike of Tokyo asked people to stay in this coming weekend. Generally speaking, the lifestyle in Japan hasn’t changed and restaurants and bars have been full in recent weeks and subways have remained packed. He also asked that all events be closed down until 4/12 ... Korakuen Hall has now banned spectators at its shows for the time being. That was basically the last vestige of the smaller promotions being able to draw significant revenue ... However, New Japan announced that based on the recommendations of Kato they are canceling the 3/31 Sakura Genesis show at Sumo Hall in Tokyo. As noted in recent weeks, there was hope that would be the first show back. No card had been announced since the card was based on what was going to happen at the since-canceled New Japan Cup tournament. Regarding the tournament, no decision has been made whether it will be redone later in the year ... They also announced a 4/11 show in Sagamihara is canceled. At this point they canceled only that show and not the tour. Right now the first show back is listed for 4/12 in Hamamatsu. The reports are that all upper management of New Japan decided to take what was called a responsible and cautious approach for the weeks ahead. They don’t want any fans or talent to get sick, so decided against any empty arena shows as they felt it was not worth the risk to talent and that they are looking at health as the first priority. The Best of the Super Junior tournament is scheduled to start on 5/12. Right now, anyone who comes to Japan from a foreign country has to be quarantined for two weeks, so any Americans, Europeans or Mexicans coming for that tournament would have to come two weeks earlier and pretty much stay in a hotel or home, with no going to the gym ...

Brett Lauderdale, Joey Janela and Game Changer Wrestling were able to raise $12,000 for independent wrestlers who performed on their two empty arena shows this past week in a secret location. A lot of clips have gone around of comedic social distancing spots where guys would be six feet apart and one guy would do a move like a huracanrana or choke slam or clothesline and the guy six feet away would take the bump for the move. Obviously some people are going to hate that and some will find it funny. It doesn’t destroy or kill wrestling. The only people who can hurt wrestling are those with the mass exposure to do so, just as they are the only people who can grow the popularity of wrestling. The people on the other levels only role is to provide a product that entertains enough people that it is financially viable for the person putting up the money and hopefully can do continual repeat business. The funny thing is, that was the exact goal of every start-up and established pro wrestling group since the beginning of time

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer The go-home show for WrestleMania 36 did the lowest number for a live Raw episode in modern history with 1.92 million viewers on average. The 1.65 million viewers for hour three was the lowest in the history of the show, even beating the episode on Christmas Eve of 2018. The reality is that the empty arena format has past its curiosity level and now the viewership is going to drop, and great interviews alone is not going to cause that to change ... The first-to-third hour decline was 23 percent, the fifth biggest in history. The decline was 15 percent in women 18-49, 22 percent in men 18-49, teenagers increased, and the core audience for the show, those over 50, dropped 26 percent from the first to third hour. The hours were: 8 p.m. 2.14 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.99 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.65 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer Sunday night's airing of WrestleMania 32 from 2016 averaged 720,000 viewers on ESPN, down 14 percent from last weekend's WrestleMania 30 replay on the same network. Like last week, it was the highest viewed program on ESPN for the week with no live sports taking place ... The WrestleMania 32 replay drew a 0.25 rating in the 18-49 demo, finishing 38th on cable TV in that category on Sunday. Not counting news-related programming, the show would've finished 14th.

For some comparisons, last week's Mania 30 replay on ESPN did 839,000 viewers.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Back Body Drop has UK viewership information from the past two weeks for both WWE and AEW. -The March 16th edition of Raw was watched by 67,800 on BT Sport -The March 18th edition of AEW Dynamite (which aired on ITV4 two days later and was their first empty arena show) averaged 101,000 viewers with 55,000 watching live and 46,000 time-shifted. -The March 18th edition of NXT on BT Sport did 40,300, which was the show without any matches -SmackDown on March 20th did 63,600. -The March 19th edition of NXT UK that aired the following day on BT Sport averaged 33,600.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE has filed to trademark two new phrases pertaining to WrestleMania 36. First, the company filed to trademark "WWE Dream Match Mania" in reference to a WWE Network special that will air on Thursday where WrestleMania dream matches will be simulated on WWE 2K ... The company also filed to trademark "I Was Home" in reference to fans not attending WrestleMania due to the coronavirus pandemic

Originally Posted by Fightful On April 16, 2019, Brodie Lee (formerly Luke Harper) publicly requested his release from WWE. Lee was sidelined for the second half of 2018 after undergoing wrist surgery and though he was cleared in early February 2019, wasn't brought back for a match until March and was never used in a major program for the first quarter of the year. Speaking on Talk is Jericho, Lee detailed the months leading up to him deciding he was ready to leave the company. "One of my last, the one that was like 'fuck this place,' I sat outside Vince's office -- I had been off for so long [after the Bludgeon Brothers broke up] -- I sat outside his office for three hours. Everyone leaves and Michael Hayes walks out and is like, 'I'm the last one.' I knock on the door and he goes, 'I don't want to see anybody right now.' I'm like, 'mother....' [He didn't know I was out there]. I'm going to leave, I threw my pitches in the garbage. Shawn Spears goes, 'he's in his other office.' Before I left, I gave him one final pitch, he's eating salad, and he's like 'I'll look at these on the plane.' I knew that was it," he recalled. Lee figured Vince would never look at his pitches as he said he was going to do, leading to Lee becoming more frustrated. Lee did finally get the eyes of McMahon via text and was used in the Andre The Giant Memorial Battle Royal at WrestleMania 35, thinking it was going to lead to something more, but it didn't work out that way. "Then I remember, somebody gave me his number. What did I have to lose? I texted him, 'Hey man, just wondering what's going on with my career?' This was right before WrestleMania 35. He asked me, 'Why aren't you in the Andre battle royal?' I said, 'Sir, that's a question that you should probably be able to answer.' I have nothing to lose. He goes, 'Well you are now.' That week in the meetings, he had chastised some of the writers like, 'How do we leave this guy off and him not have anything? Let's come up with something for him.' Oh. It worked. We got a sheet and I was one of the last two or three. When we got there, they have kayfabed us on the end of the battle royal and there were like ten other people after me. Demoralized again, but no problem."

More stuff from Lee that led to him leaving WWE: https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/b...as-leaving-wwe

Originally Posted by Fightful Before Edge officially returned to the ring at WWE Royal Rumble, he needed to get back into ring shape. Edge retired following WrestleMania 27 due to a neck injury ... The first signs that Edge had been feeling better were at SummerSlam 2019 when he delivered a spear to Elias. After visiting with doctors, he was officially cleared by WWE doctor Dr. Joseph Maroon. And that's when the training began. "I talked to [Triple H, Paul Levesque], and I said, 'I can't go to a ring anywhere because people will start seeing me. I can't go to the PC.' So they sent me a ring. I got a warehouse space, and I set up a ring and basically had my own personal 'Field of Dreams,' and I just got in there and got to work. Thankfully, I'm married to another Hall of Famer who can pick up and body slam me, which you can't say for a lot of wives. The Revival, they both live in Asheville, so they'd come, and they'd get in there with me, and they'd put me through my paces. I was keeping up with them. I wasn't tired, and I wasn't sore, and I thought, 'OK, this is going to happen, and this is going to happen at a level that I wanted.' I didn't want to come back and be anything less than what I was. I'm going to have to work differently. I'm going to have different limitations ... I still want to be able to go in there and be able to go half an hour," he said.

Originally Posted by Observer The first half of the bracket is set for AEW's TNT Championship tournament. On tonight's AEW Dark, it was announced that Cody vs. Shawn Spears and Darby Allin vs. Sammy Guevara are the matches on the left side of the TNT Championship tournament bracket. The winners of those matches will face each other in the semifinals. Cody vs. Spears and Allin vs. Guevara are both rematches from AEW pay-per-views. Cody defeated Spears at All Out last August, while Allin defeated Guevara at Revolution this February. The right side of the bracket will be revealed on tomorrow's episode of Dynamite. It's an eight-man, single-elimination tournament. The tournament will kick off on the Wednesday, April 8 episode of Dynamite. AEW announced that the inaugural TNT Champion is scheduled to be crowned with the finals taking place at Double or Nothing in Las Vegas on Saturday, May 23.

Originally Posted by Observer WWE has announced an extension and expansion of their television deal in India. WWE and Sony Pictures Network India have announced "a five-year extension with an expanded broadcast agreement that will deliver WWE’s weekly flagship programming and localized content in India and the Indian subcontinent, making SPN the exclusive home to WWE in-ring content across its television and digital platforms." The deal includes SPN having the rights to air Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and WWE pay-per-views live on its sports and digital platforms in English, Hindi, and regional languages. The extended partnership "also provides SPN the rights to WWE Network which hosts thousands of hours of content to be made available to audiences in India exclusively through SonyLIV, SPN’s OTT platform. In addition and for the first time, SPN will curate content from WWE’s extensive video library which includes live events, iconic matches, interviews with Legends, reality shows, documentaries and more, on its own platforms." Financial terms weren't disclosed. Dave Meltzer said on last night's Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE got a significant increase but not as big of an increase as some people expected.

WWE stocks probably going to get hammered again depending on how big the gap is between expected amount and actual amount.

Originally Posted by PWI Kylie Rae has officially signed an Impact Wrestling contract. We are told the signing took place a few weeks back and it should be announced on Impact Wrestling TV shortly.

Originally Posted by PWI Dark Side of the Ring will present their New Jack documentary tonight at 10 PM EST on Vice TV. The episode will followed by After Dark, a 30 minute discussion of the episode hosted by comedian Chris Gethard. Last week's season premiere, featuring a two part episode examining the Benoit tragedy, scored the all time best audience ever for Vice as a channel, bringing in 1.2 million viewers over three broadcasts of the episode on 3/24, according to Variety.

Originally Posted by PWI On 3/26, All Elite Wrestling applied for two new trademarks: "All Elite Wrestling AEW Best Summer Ever" ... "DEATH TRIANGLE"

Originally Posted by PWI Due to the current coronavirus outbreak, NJPW has also announced the cancellation of additional events: April 12-18 events cancelled In response to the continuing Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, New Japan Pro-Wrestling has arrived at the decision to cancel five additional Road to Dontaku events that were scheduled between April 12 and 18. These cancellations join the cancelled Sakura Genesis event on March 31 and the first date on the Road to Dontaku tour on April 11. We deeply apologise to fans who were looking forward to these events. Ultimately, the health and safety of our fans, wrestlers and staff, as well as society at large is our utmost concern, and we will make announcements about events scheduled after April 18 upon careful monitoring of this developing situation.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling John Ourand at Sports Business Journal reports that DAZN has informed sports leagues they will withhold rights fees on games that have been suspended or content that has not been delivered during the pandemic. Ourand said that DAZN is believed to be the first media company to take this tact, which has been a major subject given the massive rights deals for sports leagues that are currently suspended. In an e-mail to employees at DAZN, CEO Simon Denyer stated that an unspecified number of employees would be furloughed, where their jobs would be available to them after the crisis. Denyer added that it’s the biggest disaster to hit the sports world in 75 years and the biggest challenge DAZN has ever faced. It is unknown if this would apply to Bellator, who did cancel their last show the day of and have postponed their three shows that were scheduled for May.

Originally Posted by Fightful While Asuka has been on both Raw and SmackDown in recent weeks, Kairi Sane has been noticeably absent from television. According to Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio, Sane has been in Japan following her marriage to her partner in February. Meltzer reports that WWE officials understood that Sane would not make it for the television tapings, but she did return in time to film her match for WrestleMania 36.

Originally Posted by Fightful Steve Austin showed up to the March 16 WWE Raw to celebrate 3:16 Day with the WWE Universe. Unfortunately, the March 16 WWE Raw was the first Raw, and second show overall, to take place at the WWE Performance Center in front of no live audience. Austin still appeared on the show, doing a bit with Byron Saxton where Saxton would rate Austin's Rules of 3:16 Day. The segment ended with Austin kicking Saxton in the nuts and delivering a Stunner. Speaking to Peter Rosenberg on ESPN, Austin revealed his original idea for the segment. "It was strange. I wanted to go out there and do a sit-down interview with Byron Saxton or Jerry Lawler and talk about what 3:16 meant to me because so many years ago, cutting that promo in 96, and all these years later, we didn't have social media. All these years later, WWE making 3:16 Day because of social media, I wanted to talk about the impact and resonation with the fans and give people something to think about and talk about. We did what we did. That was their creative so it was what it was. It was hard (working with no audience)," he said. Earlier in the interview, Austin was asked about shows continuing at the Performance Center in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Austin replied, "I didn't know what to think. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Tampa working at the Performance Center in the empty building. That's Vince's mentality, 'show must go on.' When Owen fell to his death -- rest his soul -- the show went on. That's his mentality."

TPWW Frontpage:

• Fite TV and FOX Sports to Stream WrestleMania 36 (for Way More Money Than WWE Network)
• AEW Taping at an “Undisclosed Location” This Week
• Updated WrestleMania 36 Card: One New Match, One Changed Match
• AEW Announces New “TNT Championship” & Tournament
• Rezar of AOP Undergoes Surgery, Could Be Out for Eight Months

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Originally Posted by Observer ROH has announced a big change to their HonorClub streaming service. Live pay-per-views will now be included with all HonorClub subscriptions. PPVs were only included for VIP subscribers previously, and standard subscribers had received discounts on PPV purchases ... ROH also made two more announcements as part of their first wave of HonorClub upgrades: The Archives - HonorClub is beginning to add to its library of historic events. A number of ROH events from 2010 are now available and content will continue to be added over the next couple months after it is finalized for publishing. Match Menus - Another feature of the new and improved HonorClub is the addition of match menus, which will allow users to skip to their favorite matches from the video player. This currently only works when watching via rohhonorclub.com on your computer or mobile device, BUT there are future plans to provide this experience on the apps, as well as to make the matches searchable across the platform . Match menus are currently available for the 2020 ROH Events and will be available for all shows going back to 2016 in the coming weeks. Check out this new functionality now by opening your favorite 2020 show and finding the menu icon in the video player’s function bar.

Originally Posted by Observer AEW has revealed their latest set of top-five roster rankings: Men's division -- Champion: Jon Moxley (8-0 singles record in 2020, 13-2-1 overall record) Chris Jericho (0-1 singles record in 2020, 11-3-1 overall record) Jake Hager (4-0 singles record in 2020, 5-0 overall record) Cody (5-1 singles record in 2020, 12-5-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (2-0 singles record in 2020, 18-6 overall record) Darby Allin (4-2 singles record in 2020, 9-8-1 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (4-1 singles record in 2020, 9-4 overall record) Hikaru Shida (5-1 singles record in 2020, 10-5 overall record) Kris Statlander (2-3 singles record in 2020, 6-6 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) Riho (3-3 singles record in 2020, 11-6 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (6-0 tag team record in 2020, 18-6 overall record for Omega, 13-9 overall record for Page) The Dark Order (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 9-3 overall record for Evil Uno, 9-4 overall record for Stu Grayson) The Young Bucks (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 12-9 overall record for Nick Jackson, 12-9 overall record for Matt Jackson) SCU (2-3 tag team record in 2020, 16-7 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 16-6 overall record for Frankie Kazarian) The Lucha Bros (1-2 tag team record in 2020, 10-9 overall record for Pentagon Jr., 11-9 overall record for Fenix) Best Friends (3-3 tag team record in 2020, 9-13 overall record for Trent Barreta, 8-11 overall record for Chuck Taylor)

Originally Posted by PWI Ryback did a great job of explaining how WWE's downside contracts worth in the video below. It's worth watching but the gist of it is this. If you, say, have a 250,000 downside on your deal and you hit that figure by say month 8, Ryback said at that point if you are at odds with the company, they don't have to pay you for the next four months, until your deal expires. The downside, according to him, provides for a minimum weekly amount, but only until the total amount for the year has been reached. It's a good listen.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYzoAn7-tic

Originally Posted by Fightful Nowadays, social media is so ever-present that a single hashtag can Trend globally and start a movement. However, that wasn't always the case and perhaps no single entertainment entity has had to adapt more to the modern-age than WWE. On the WrestleMania 11 episode of Bruce Prichard's Something to Wrestle podcast, Prichard explains that the opinion of the “smart fan” was not an overwhelming one back in 1995 and the only times they would use such an opinion would be to get a handle on what that segment of the audience didn't enjoy so they knew what they were doing right. According to Bruce Prichard, if that audience didn't like something, then that means it was extremely successful for what the then-WWF was trying to accomplish. “Even though it is a minority, the online presence, there wasn't that presence at this point in time,” Bruce began. “There wasn't a loud, boisterous group who would bitch and moan about every single thing that you did. You know, we would use as a barometer a lot of times whether or not that vocal minority in the dirt sheet group-- if they liked something, that usually meant we did something wrong. If they hated it, that usually meant it was extremely successful. So they were hating [Diesel as a babyface with Shawn Michaels as a heel] and we thought, 'Okay, well, this should be pretty good.'"

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Sports Illustrated spoke with Seth Rollins to promote WrestleMania 36. While talking about the empty building shows at the Performance Center that WWE has been doing, Rollins was asked is it harder to cut promos without a crowd or wrestle without a crowd and here’s Rollins’ response: “I would say cut a promo. You don’t have crowd reaction to play off of. A promo, when you’re having a conversation with the crowd, it really feels like you are talking to somebody. It feels as though they are part of the conversation. If you don’t have that, there’s a lot of pressure, and also not having the ability to do multiple takes. Monday Night RAW is live, so that’s a one-take promo. That’s a one-take monologue. I don’t get the opportunity to cut-and-paste that thing together. It’s not like a movie. Wrestling, on the other hand, is fluid. It’s in the ring and it’s moving around. There’s a lot you can do. There are a lot of changes you can make. A promo is nerve-wracking. You can hear everything. There’s no audience to drown anything out. You can hear cameramen shuffling. You hear everybody whispering in the back. It’s really eerie in a way.” Rollins was also asked for his thoughts about WWE continuing to run shows when there have been multiple leagues and major businesses around the world that have ceased operation for the time being. Rollins stated that he doesn’t know what to think about it but he’s taking the proper precautions to make sure that he stays safe throughout this time. “I don’t know. I’m not a medical expert. Obviously the airports are still open. Should they close? I don’t know. I wish I had answers. I’m sure a lot of people do. Right now, I’m just trying to stay as hygienic as possible, keep my distance from as many people as I can. As of now, I feel great. Knock on wood, I’ve been able to avoid this thing. I know a lot of families and people who have been affected by it. It’s extremely contagious and it’s very dangerous. I wish I had more answers. I wish I knew what was the right thing to do. After WrestleMania, we’re gonna recollect and see where we’re gonna go from here. Right now, I’m very humble and grateful that I have a job that still needs me. A lot of Americans are not in that boat and their futures are uncertain. So if providing them with some entertainment can help them out, then I feel like, we’re being productive in doing something right.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated interviewed IMPACT Wrestling Co-Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore. Scott said that IMPACT has three weeks of new content left to put out on AXS TV which was to build to their Rebellion pay-per-view on April 19th. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak, that pay-per-view has been postponed to a later date. Scott said the company is brainstorming ideas of what to do in place of the event that they will not be able to hold another set of television tapings after April 19th. “We’ve got a hell of a group that is hardworking, love what they do, and will give you everything they’ve got. There are three more weeks of new content, and we’re examining all aspects of possible ways to continue doing what we love to do. We’ll keep monitoring it, and we’ll do what’s best and safest for everyone involved.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald spoke with NXT Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley about her match at WrestleMania 36 against Charlotte Flair. Rhea was asked was her match with Charlotte similar to some of the independent shows she worked in Australia and Rhea said that her match with Charlotte was more like a training match because no fans were in attendance. “To be honest, it reminds me more of a training match, but, with a lot more on the line, because even in Australia and the indies, there was still at least like a few people in the crowd where here, there’s legitimately zero fans in the crowd. There’s only the essential people there that make sure that it’s filmed and put out but that’s it, that’s all we have so to be able to go out there and not have anyone cheer for me and make any noise, it’s gonna be super weird, but I just gotta remember that there’s people at home that are making noise and making raucous and that’s definitely gonna be going through my mind.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per Fightful’s ‘Fightful Wrestling Weekly’, Conrad Thompson helped the producers of Dark Side of the Ring get in touch with several people involved with the show and Jim Cornette had a “meltdown” during the ‘Brawl For All’ episode that will air next week.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The latest edition of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s podcast was a Q&A based show. Austin was asked about a rumor that he turned down a series of matches of with Hulk Hogan in the early 2000s and Austin confirmed that and said it came down to him thinking that a match between himself and Hogan at that time, would not deliver the way most thought/think it would’ve. “Yeah I believe I did turn ‘em all down that time, because I just never figured it was gonna be that great of a match-up. I thought our styles were so contrasting. I could’ve done it for the money and that would’ve been fine. I could’ve put the money in the bank and paid Uncle Sam his percentage, but my head wasn’t in the space that I thought we could execute what I thought we needed to execute so, I’d rather not do something that I’m not 100% about and I wasn’t 100% about that match-up. No disrespect to Hulk Hogan, one of the greatest superstars that ever got in the squared circle. No ifs, ands, buts about it.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Robert Karpeles, who is a former WWE creative team writer and the individual behind the ‘WWE Creative Humor’ Twitter account was interviewed by Sports Illustrated. Karpeles spoke about his time in WWE and his experience[s] with Vince McMahon. “I was on the creative team, and I was also a producer for WWE 24/7, which was the precursor to the WWE Network. Working for WWE, you have ideas and thoughts and opinions about what you see being presented, how characters are being used, how story lines are playing out, how matches are being perceived. Sometimes you can feel voiceless. I was young when I started at WWE, and it can be intimidating to speak up. It’s Vince McMahon’s sandbox. No matter who you are — going all the way up to some of the most creative names in the history of the business, like Paul Heyman, Dusty Rhodes, Jim Cornette, or Bruce Prichard—it’s Vince’s decision and it’s Vince’s show. That even seems to be an undercurrent now with Triple H too.” He also talked about how his first two Twitter accounts got shut down by WWE and there was a bit of a legal research that Karpeles did to ensure the protection of his new accounts. “I started this completely anonymously. I didn’t put it out there that it was being done by someone who had worked for WWE, and I didn’t leverage any of my relationships to build a following. When I started, my handle was @WWE_Creative, which I couldn’t believe was available, but WWE didn’t have the full social media presence that it does now. One day, I went to log in but my account had been shut down. My account, along with the ‘Cranky Vince’ account, which was a little more crass, was shut down. WWE said people were mistaking the accounts as a real account. If you read more than two or three of my texts and think this is a WWE account, then something is not processing. It’s a humor account. So I put on my lawyer hat and contacted Twitter. That is why it is now WWECreative_ish on the handle and why it is WWE Creative Humor, which clearly indicates that I am not a group of people sitting in an office in Stamford, Connecticut, taking valuable time away from reformatting the show to make snide comments on Twitter.”

Originally Posted by PWI DARK SIDE OF THE RING Season 2, lifts the veil on wrestling’s most controversial stories, and premiered on Tuesday, March 24th with a two-hour special episode on the tragic story of wrestling icon Chris Benoit. The third episode will tackle Brawl For All on April 7 at 10:00pm ET/PT. The series, produced by VICE Studios, will air weekly on Tuesdays at 10:00pm ET/PT.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE Backstage Ratings – Mar. 31, 2020 – Charlotte Flair
• Dark Side of the Ring Ratings: New Jack Episode
• Florida Issues 30-Day Statewide Stay-at-Home Order, Affecting WWE and AEW

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Originally Posted by Observer AEW Dynamite averaged 685,000 viewers Wednesday night on TNT, down 16.4 percent from last week: the third-lowest viewership total the show has ever done. Meanwhile, NXT averaged 590,000 viewers on USA Network, down 11.8 percent. It was the fourth-lowest total for the show since moving to USA Network. The total combined audience of 1.275 million viewers is the lowest to watch on Wednesday since the Wednesday Night War began. The previous low was 1.339 million when both shows went against game seven of the 2019 World Series on October 30. Looking at the key 18-49 demo, AEW averaged a 0.25 rating last night, down 26.5 percent. That tied the December 18 episode for the lowest Dynamite has done in that demo. With news programming dominating the ratings, Dynamite ranked 37th on cable in that category Wednesday night. For the third straight week, NXT failed to crack the top 50 in the 18-49 rankings, finishing at 74th with a 0.15 rating. That's down 25 percent from last week and matched January 1 for the lowest number the show has done in the demo. Factoring out the news programming, AEW would have finished eighth on the night. That's still lower than Dynamite usually does, but is further proof of how much people were watching the news channels on Wednesday.

Originally Posted by Observer Sports Illustrated asked Brent Colborne, ESPN’s Senior Director of Programming, if WrestleMania could potentially air live on ESPN in the future: “It’s a great question. We’re always open to discussing a lot of different ideas with various leagues, but right now the focus for what we’re doing with WWE is on the short-term. We felt like this was a really good content opportunity for us to show these three encores, and a really good promotional opportunity for WWE to help utilize our reach and our brand to create more excitement for WrestleMania this upcoming weekend.”

Originally Posted by Observer Kushida will be in action on this week's episode of 205 Live. WWE has announced that Kushida vs. Danny Burch will air on 205 Live tomorrow night. Jack Gallagher vs. Tyler Breeze is also set for the episode. Three weeks ago, Kushida was part of the Team NXT vs. 205 Live originals 10-man elimination tag match on 205 Live. He was revealed as the final member of Team NXT on that show, replacing Lio Rush. Team NXT won the match after dissension between Gallagher and his teammates. Kushida and Isaiah "Swerve" Scott were the two members of Team NXT left standing at the end.

KUSHIDA's NXT run has been very disappointing soo far compared to what he was doing in NJPW.

Originally Posted by Observer MLW's event that was supposed to take place in Texas this May has been pushed back five months. It was announced today that MLW's tapings that were scheduled for the NYTEX Sports Centre in North Richland Hills, Texas on Saturday, May 2 have been rescheduled to Saturday, October 3. Tickets that had been purchased for the show will be honored on the new date. MLW wrote that league officials "are continually monitoring the on-going coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. The status to delay additional events will be decided in the weeks ahead.

Originally Posted by Observer All Japan Pro Wrestling’s Champion Carnival tournament will not go on as scheduled. It was announced today that the tournament will not be taking place in April due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It was scheduled to start on April 6 at Korakuen Hall, with the finals taking place on May 5 at the same arena. The president of AJPW, Tsuyoki Fukuda, said in the press conference announcing the cancellation that he will "make every possible effort" to run the tournament this year. Before the cancellation, a number of changes were already being made due to the fast moving nature of the pandemic. Davey Boy Smith Jr., Lucas Steel, and Joel Redman were all previously announced for the tournament. However, they were pulled following travel restrictions imposed by the Japanese government.

Originally Posted by PWI Jim Cornette announced on his most recent podcast that Kevin Sullivan will be joining him on the Friday 4/8 episode of The Jim Cornette Experience. Sullivan will be sitting down and, for the first time, will be discussing his relationship with the late Nancy Benoit as well as why he declined to take part in Vice TV's Dark Side of the Ring documentary on the Benoit family tragedy. In the documentary, it was claimed that Sullivan had physically abused his ex-wife, something the documentary noted he completely denied while also declining the chance to be interviewed. The podcast will drop on all podcast platforms on 4/8.

Originally Posted by PWI FS1's broadcast of the 2020 WWE Royal Rumble event on Tuesday 3/28 garnered 421,000 viewers. As noted a few days ago, that event helped WWE Backstage that night reach 134,000 viewers, one of the best numbers for that series in some time.

Originally Posted by PWI Edward "Teddy Hart" Annis' court date on charges of strangulation resulting in wounding/bodily harm in Richmond, Virginia have been pushed back to Wednesday 6/10 at 2:15 PM according to court records. Hart was arrested on Thursday afternoon 3/26, his third arrest in six weeks in the State of Virginia. The victim in the case was named publicly as Manic, who Hart had been dating off and on for several months. Prior to Hart being arrested yesterday, Virginia-based independent wrestler Ace Montana posted a video on his Facebook page where he exits a house, telling someone (believed to be Manic) to lock the door behind him. After exiting the house, he confronts Hart, warning him that the police have been called and that "she would be pressing charges" while threatening Hart that he needed to leave. In the video, Hart denied ever touching Manic before heeding Montana's orders and leaving the immediate premises ... Manic has since come out publicly to state that she does not wish to file charges against Hart and that she feels the entire situation has been blown out of proportion. Under Virginia law, strangulation is considered a class six felony. Should Annis be convicted, he could be looking at 1-5 years imprisonment and a fine of $2,500.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Per ABC 6, Jacob Kasper, two-time All American at Duke has received a tryout from WWE and he plans to pursue it after the Coronavirus pandemic settles down. ESPN ran a story about Jacob in May of 2018. Gerald Brisco scouted and recruited Kasper and dubbed him as possibly the next John Cena.

Originally Posted by WrestlingInc John Cena, the face of WWE for more than a decade, appeared on the latest episode of Corey Graves' After The Bell podcast where he discussed some of his favorite matches and his opinion on the state of WWE. He said the current era of programming needs one defining figure, but doesn't know if that figure can be produced. "It needs what I'm not sure it can produce, and that's...just the state of where everything is now, which is weird because it kind of always corrects itself so we're in a day and age where it needs a frontman or woman," Cena said. "It needs one, maybe two, definable characters to absolutely be the reason, and that's what will be able to define what the era is because it takes on those personality traits of its top star. Like I said it before I don't know if, all things considered, the crowd is so mixed, that if the company puts its faith behind an individual, the knee-jerk reaction of the audience, even if they liked the guy last week, is to say 'f--k you, you're not going to tell me who I like.' So the audience is also tipping the scales of this not being able to happen. Universal popularity will never happen because someone will see it and get on to it and be like, 'he seems to be getting popular, let's stop this right now,' or, 'she seems to be getting popular let's change this right now,' and I've seen it happen with guys who are really darlings of that underground crew make it, and as soon as they make it, the rug is pulled out from under them. "It's difficult because it's like a 'Super Friends', because the audience is so segmented, some people will embrace that underground dude. Some people will embrace the top person. Some people will embrace the midcard. Some people will embrace the cruiserweights, and then there's the split between like, 'I like SmackDown, I like RAW, I like NXT.' It's just really difficult to get one definable figure to stand at the front and be like, 'okay let's go.' I mean, I don't know, so I don't know. That's where the business is, and usually if it pushes too far in one way, the pendulum finds a way to come back, but I really don't know because the program is so socially active, and your social emotions are not what they are in the arena. I know that first hand, dude. When you're at the edge of your seat, and you're lost in a championship fight and something happens and you think maybe a title is going to switch and it doesn't, you stand and you catch yourself going, 'nah,' and you tweet like, 'that was BS,' or whatever. Your keyboard emotions aren't necessarily the same as watching it live."

TPWW Frontpage:

• AEW’s “Undisclosed Location” Was a Wrestling School in Georgia
• AEW World Title Match in Two Weeks + More Matches Announced
• Full Bracket Revealed for AEW TNT Championship Tournament

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The most unique WrestleMania in history airs over two nights in front of no fans at the WWE Performance Center, a show that was actually taped on 3/25 and 3/26. At press time, which matches are on what show have not been determined and while Becky Lynch vs. Shayna Baszler and Kevin Owens vs. Seth Rollins have had interviews talking about being on the first night, we’re told after everything was to be edited, all the decisions would be made. I’m not sure what the purpose of doing the show now is. They are giving up $15 million to $17 million when it comes to ticket sales and merchandise sales. Because of the time frame, the increase in network subscriptions, the biggest value of the show, won’t be there at anywhere near the level of past years. So they are giving up the WrestleMania bump which means year-over-year network numbers will be even worse than projected ... Unless it’s greed for showing power over outside influences, because greed usually associates with money and obviously from a strict money standpoint, this was the worst decision possible. The theory that with less competition and no sports that more people will watch it is probably not the case, because wrestling viewing has been down, not up, even with more people home. But that idea would only work if it was a free show, and not a paid show. From a fan enjoyment standpoint it was a bad decision as well. About the only explanation for it was stubbornness and an attempt to prove that they can overcome the real world and tell some stories on future documentaries on how bold they were and how they put smiles on faces when the world needed to be cheered up.

There were a few casualties, including one of the two main events. Roman Reigns pulled out of the show under unique circumstances ... Since people have asked about Brock Lesnar, who has had multiple issues with Diverticulitis, doctors have told us that diverticulitis (which Vince McMahon has also had) in the past would not pose any more significant risk than anything else. McMahon is a risk because of his age. Reigns came to Orlando for his match with Bill Goldberg for the Universal title. The details are sketchy, but it was told to us that The Miz sowed up sick, and ended up being flagged from performing. The Usos, who were to face him, and Reigns talked about it and whether they talked him into it, or he came to the conclusion on his own, he flagged himself. And the company also let him take the heat for it, rather than taking the responsibility publicly, even if they didn’t actually make the call. And they continued to advertise him anyway. Both Smackdown and Raw, and the WWE web site, continued to push Goldberg vs. Reigns. This is after Goldberg vs. Braun Strowman was already taped ... The story broke after the second day of WrestleMania tapings were completed and Reigns confirmed it three days later. He clearly wasn’t happy, as it wasn’t so much an announcement he had missed the show as much as being upset at the criticism for pulling himself from the show ... And while taking a temperature and not allowing people in the building who have any signs of a cold or flu is certainly what you have to do and everyone is doing it, there are asymptomatic carriers and the crew was not tested for the virus itself, because those tests aren’t easy to come by and the results don’t come back immediately anyway. Bryan did do the show. His wife, Brianna, on her podcast, had mixed emotions. As a performer, she knows the significance of WrestleMania. As a wife, she knows her husband’s past history

Nobody in WWE has tested positive for coronavirus.

Andrade suffered what was called a not that serious rib injury, but serious enough that he couldn’t do WrestleMania, while performing in a tag team match on 3/23. He was promoted throughout the show on 3/30 as being in a six-man tag match, and then as the match stared, Zelina Vega said he had a serious rib injury and announced Austin Theory as his replacement. Theory is also his replacement in the tag title match at WrestleMania. Right now it is unclear whether Theory will remain on the stable. The usual rule is that people on television on NXT can’t be brought up on a whim, but this situation was such that all those rules are thrown out. Theory was picked by Paul Heyman to be the replacement.

WWE has made two surprising deals when it comes to the distribution of WrestleMania, which will air as a PPV for the first time on both FoxSports.com, FOX NOW and Fite.TV ... In WWE promotion, while they do mention the WWE Network, they no longer mention WrestleMania being free for new subscribers, which had been a key selling point in past years. They also pushed cable and satellite PPV, which they had previously almost mocked viewers for buying, and hadn’t pushed in years ... The fact that FITE is part of the deal indicates that this is more WWE opening the show up to others as opposed to FOX buying an exclusive, since the show also remains on regular PPV. The other key is how many people would buy the shows from FOX or FITE for streaming at these prices when you can stream from the WWE Network for $9.99 per month and get both shows at the price ... The number would be weak to begin with, and much weaker this coming week. To me, all this does is tell the people they are trying to sell streaming rights to that the value of those rights is far weaker than they would perceive or have any data on if they just didn’t do it this week. WrestleMania last year did about 65,000 buys on U.S. PPV through television, which would likely be in places without high-speed Internet, or some people who are well off enough that they’d rather spend more money to watch on television and push a button than learn how to hook the network up to their television ... This could also be a test market for either data to sell the PPV package to a streaming service, but the low numbers this is sure to get at those prices for streaming isn’t going to help any value arguments. One would think, unless some people are so stupid as to not realize they can get the same thing streaming for less money, that the FOX numbers here will be disappointing, and not help WWE when it comes to negotiations for next year. Even if, by chance, they wouldn’t be as bad as logic would say under normal circumstances, the current economy makes this the worst week to try this out. But this also could be step one in next year’s Mania being only PPV, both television and streaming, and no longer on the network, and establishing this as the new value price point for the biggest show of the year. This also could be another explanation of the departure of Michelle Wilson and George Barrios, who were big proponents of taking all PPVs out of that marketplace and making them part of the network package. From a business standpoint, that has been effective for the smaller shows, but has greatly hurt the amount of revenue generated each year by WrestleMania. This also would seem to indicate an ESPN+ deal isn’t close. With the huge money issues ESPN and Disney have suddenly faced, this would appear to be the worst time possible to ink a new big money sports deal. Industry sources have said that Peacock already turned down the deal with the idea they want to go with higher prestige programming as their cornerstone ... The flooding the market with television programming is part of a new philosophy. Vince is of the opinion that WrestleMania will sell more PPVs this year based on more companies distributing the event. Earlier this year, FOX itself wanted the WrestleMania kickoff show and McMahon turned it down. Then the world changed, as did his decision making. After the ratings came in for WrestleMania 30 on ESPN, the feeling was that they had reached a new group of eyeballs they had never reached before. The company’s goals for 2020 were to increase its reach among the sports fans. From there, it’s been all about new eyeballs watching the product this week in as many places as possible. The problem is the obvious overexposure issues of providing so much programming. For one week leading to WrestleMania, this is not a bad thing. To continue after WrestleMania will speed the declines of Raw and Smackdown, which are the moneymakers.

The 3/30 Raw go-home show for WrestleMania did 1,924,000 viewers and 757,000 in 18-49, the lowest in modern history for a live show, but that’s just the reality of the situation. It was the third lowest number in show history, beating only a taped show on 12/23 that did 1,835,000 and a taped show on Christmas Eve of 2018 that did 1,775,000. The third hour, which did 1,646,000 viewers, was the lowest hour in modern Raw history, breaking the mark set by hour three of the 12/23 show that did 1,686,000 viewers. The 23.0 percent first-to-third hour drop was the fifth largest in history ... As compared to the same week last year, the show was down 27.4 percent overall and 37.2 percent in 18-49 ... The key things is that the current format is running its course when it comes to keeping viewers, but this is just a situation of the times we are in. The high point of the show was the first segment with the Undertaker interview that did 2,233,000 viewers. The low point was the main event with the Paul Heyman & Brock Lesnar interview at 1,574,000 viewers and a 0.9 rating, the lowest quarter rating in history. And considering Heyman & Lesnar are usually the high point of the show, that tells you how unavoidable this is

Ric Flair was interviewed by Mark Henry and talked about an idea of a movie being made on his life, saying he’s talked to Dwayne Johnson, Hiram Garcia and Dany Garcia of Seven Bucks Entertainment and WWE about it

Brandon Thurston did research on the coronavirus and its affect on WWE. Because WWE is so reliant on fixed revenue from television, his estimates were that in a normal year this year, WWE would have taken in $1.218 billion and had $163 million in operating income. He said that if house shows are canceled for the rest of the year, that he projects company revenue as $927 million and operating income at $121 million. The non-television house shows lose money, so them being canceled doesn’t hurt profitability, but lack of PPV shows does. In addition the reality shows may not be able to go into production for new seasons for a while. It’s also notable that Saudi Arabia is not allowing live events right now and as long as that continues, WWE won’t be running that big money show there either. WWE is under contract for two shows, but I wouldn’t even want to speculate how that works given how late WWE gets paid for shows they’ve already done

New Japan Pro Wrestling canceled five more dates, house shows from 4/12 to 4/18 and at this point the first event back on the schedule is 4/19 at Korakuen Hall. The fact that no lineups have been announced for any show tells you they aren’t counting on anything happening. A number of promotions in Japan are still running. Ice Ribbon’s 3/29 show scheduled for Osaka was canceled and they ran an empty arena show at the dojo in Saitama. 2AW ran before less than 100 fans. Stardom’s 3/28 show in Shizuoka ended up being canceled the night before and some of the talent, including Hana Kimura, publicly questioned traveling and doing the show. They’re next show scheduled is 4/11 in Yokohama. Big Japan, Sendai Girls and Basara all ran this weekend. Korakuen Hall is still open for shows, but just not allowing spectators ... Pure J, Marvelous and Tokyo Joshi Pro also canceled weekend shows. There is definite fear in Japan of going into a full lockdown, which would force cancellations of all shows, as while they are only small shows, Japan is the one place left where shows happen almost every day in front of fans. For foreign talent, the Japanese government announced on 4/2 that any foreigner who leaves Japan starting on 4/3 will not be able to return any time soon ... This would go the same for foreign wrestles who live in Japan, although many of them are not in Japan now since there is no work there.

The hammer hit hard with drops by both AEW and NXT for empty arena shows on 4/1. AEW, after two strong weeks of numbers, fell to 685,000 viewers and a 0.25 in 18-49. They went from last week being the No. 2 non-news show on cable for the day in 18-49, to No. 8, trailing shows on MTV, Good Network, VH-1, Lifetime, TLC and TBS. The decline was 16.4 percent in ratings an 26.5 percent in 18-49. The decline is likely based on what happened the previous week, whether it’s life circumstances, the atmosphere last week or the silliness of the final segment. Whatever it is, the people arguing the final segment was a positive don’t have a good argument this week. NXT dropped less, doing a 590,000 viewers and a 0.15 in 18-49, a drop of 4.7 percent overall and 25.0 percent in 18-49. Next week is a week that NXT should win if ever, with two Takeover matches including Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano in what is billed as the final match of their feud, and the match that was to be the biggest NXT match of the year on its biggest Takeover of the year. AEW fell to No. 37 in 18-49 and NXT was No. 74.

For 3/25, AEW did 1.42 viewers per home, once again the highest of any pro wrestling show ... In the quarters, AEW opened with 908,000 viewers and 467,000 in 18-49 for Cody vs. Jimmy Havoc. NXT opened with 750,000 viewers and 285,000 in 18-49 for Austin Theory vs. Tyler Breeze. In the second quarter, AEW lost 46,000 viewers but gained 9,000 in 18-49 for a Jake Roberts promo, a Cody promo, a Darby Allin video and the beginning of Allin vs. Kip Sabian. NXT lost 76,000 viewers and 21,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Breeze vs. Theory and Killian Dain vs. Tehuti Miles. In the third quarter, AEW lost 61,000 viewers and 24,000 in 18-49 for Allin vs. Sabian, a Jake Hager video and Hager vs. Chico Adams. NXT lost 26,000 viewers and 27,000 in 18-49 for Tony Nese vs. Cameron Grimes. In the fourth quarter, AEW lost 12,000 viewers and 18,000 in 18-49 for the Moxley/Hager brawl, a Moxley promo, Brodie Lee video and Lee vs. QT Marshall. NXT lost 20,000 viewers but stayed even in 18-49 for Io Shirai vs. Aliyah and the three-way angle with Keith Lee, Dominik Dijakovic and Damien Priest. It should be noted that the Moxley/Hager brawl itself topped 500,000 in 18-49 and was the high point of the show in the key demo. In the fifth quarter, AEW lost 26,000 viewers and 23,000 in 18-49 for several packages revolving around The Elite vs. Inner Circle, Nick Jackson being filmed training and Sammy Guevara’s entrance. NXT gained 51,000 viewers and 19,000 in 18-49 for the Adam Cole promo plus Oney Lorcan & Danny Burch vs. Shane Thorne & Brendan Vink. This was the closest quarter on the show, with AEW having a 763,000 to 679,000 edge overall although it was 411,000 to 256,000 in 18-49. In the sixth quarter, AEW gained 41,000 viewers and 20,000 in 18-49 for the beginning of Kenny Omega vs. Sammy Guevara. NXT lost 19,000 viewers and 17,000 in 18-49 for Candice LeRae vs. Kayden Carter. In the seventh quarter, AEW lost 19,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49 for the ending of Omega vs. Guevara. NXT gained 4,000 viewers and 27,000 in 18-49 for Matt Riddle vs. Roderick Strong. In the final quarter, which was Chris Jericho & Matt Hardy on AEW and HHH, Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano for NXT, it saw AEW gain 51,000 viewers and 50,000 in 18-49, and NXT lost 15,000 viewers and 16,000 in 18-49. The final quarter saw AEW at 836,000 viewers and 463,000 in 18-49 and NXT with 649,000 viewers and 247,000 in 18-49.

On the television front, and this is weird because of classification and kind of misleading because of Raw, but AEW’s first two shows after the world changed were the two highest rated sports shows of that period in the 18-49 demo. The key to that is that USA lists Raw (which would be first) and NXT (which wouldn’t rate anyway) as entertainment and not sports, which is why it’s never on sports listings. However TNT, ESPN and FOX list their wrestling as sports and not entertainment, but FOX is network and not cable. Smackdown has been the highest rated sports show overall. For the week ending 3/22, AEW was no. 1 on cable overall, beating NASCAR on FS 1 by 932,000 to 903,000 but in 18-49, AEW did 455,000 to 297,000 over NASCAR. WrestleMania 30 did 405,000 in 18-49 for second place for that week. But TNT was thrilled with the first two weeks numbers since 18-49 is the number they focus on and over 400,000 is a home run. There have been network shows including replays of old 30 for 30s on ABC, U.S. Figure Skating Championships on NBC and replays of old NCAA basketball finals on CBS that have drawn more viewers (but not higher ratings because of the difference in homes available),but AEW has beaten all those shows, even with the huge network advantage in 18-49. So among sports programming overall, Smackdown was No. 1 and AEW was No. 2 in the key demo, and No. 3 for the first week of world changing was the WrestleMania show and then the Figure Skating did 375,000 on NBC, which is in 30 million more homes (giving it a 35 percent advantage) while AEW has done 453,000 and 444,000 over its two weeks. For the week ending 3/29, Smackdown was No. 1 across the board in the sports listings on network. A NASCAR race in Texas on FS 1 was No. 1 overall in sports with 823,000 viewers, but it was 241,000 in 18-49 so AEW nearly doubled it in the key demo, even though at 816,000, it was No. 2 for the week. The 444,000 in 18-49 for AEW beat No. 2 WrestleMania 32 on ESPN at 326,000, which was ESPN’s highest rated event of the week

Tracy Smothers, 57, is finishing up a round of chemotherapy in his battle with Stage III Lymphoma which has also led to his losing 45 percent of his heart functioning. Kassius Ohno, who considers Smothers one of his mentors, set up a Go Fund Me for him

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer The Raw after WrestleMania last night did 2.10 million viewers, a number that just has to be accepted for what it is. The good news is the first-to-third hour drop, which had been near record levels the past two weeks, was 17 percent. That's still significant, but it was greatly alleviated by the Drew McIntyre vs. Big Show match which ended the show with strong gains ... The viewers were up nine percent from last week's record low, but there should have been a substantial increase coming off WrestleMania. It was down 29 percent from the 2.94 million viewers last year for the Raw after WrestleMania, but a huge drop from last year was a lock as well. The show was also up 19 percent from last week in the 18-49 demo. The three hours were: 8 p.m. 2.31 million viewers 9 p.m. 2.06 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.93 million viewers

Originally Posted by Observer McIntyre told ESPN that he locked his WWE title belt in a room until his win aired: “Things are not official until they happen. So just like everybody else, I sat on the couch and watched both days of WrestleMania. I enjoyed the show. It took my mind off of things. Watching myself was very crazy, being on the couch -- watching it just like everyone else, wondering what was going to happen. I kind of pushed out of my head what had happened. I was reacting to it like I was in the match. My wife had to move away from me, because I was darting from side to side with every F-5, with every Claymore. Finally, when I had won the title, I saw the emotion and remembered how real it was to me. In that moment, it was real again as I was watching it. I went upstairs, I opened the door and I took the title out, now that it was official. I had another moment with my wife in the house, and with my family on Zoom. I had my whole family on there."

Originally Posted by Observer WWE touted that they set a WrestleMania week record with more than 967 million video views across their digital and social platforms (including the WWE Network, WWE.com, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat), That’s an increase of 20 percent from last year. WWE also hyped that 46 million hours of content was consumed during WrestleMania week, which was up 28 percent from 2019.

Originally Posted by Observer Becky Lynch has now been Raw Women’s Champion for a full year. WALTER’s NXT United Kingdom Championship reign also reached its 365th day on Sunday.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE announced this afternoon that they will report their first quarter earnings for 2020 on 4/23. In a change from their usual handling of the earnings, the regular conference call discussing the report will take place at 5 PM EST that day instead of the usual 11 AM.

Originally Posted by Fightful More Stardom shows have been canceled. Stardom announced that all shows through May 6 have have been called off as a result of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. In addition, Pro-Wrestling NOAH and Big Japan have either canceled or rescheduled some of its upcoming shows.

Originally Posted by PWI BeIn Sport is now airing what is being advertised as the Best of MLW every night at 10 PM EST. Basically, the episodes are older episodes of MLW FUSION TV, airing in repeat form to help the network with programming gaps due to the current coronavirus pandemic. So, if you are looking to revisit old episodes or seeking to catch past MLW content that you may have missed in the past, set for DVRs accordingly.

Originally Posted by PWI MLW released the following interview with Court Bauer ... MLW.com: What’s your strategy for producing programming on the horizon if the pandemic goes on for some time? Court: ... As for strategy… we have a plan and it ties into something the fans have been demanding since we relaunched in 2017. We have at a minimum 50 episodes being mapped out. We could comfortably go into mid 2021 without promoting a live event ... We are building business models for a return as early as June, one that anticipates a return in 15 months and a few in-between that range. We need to be ready for several scenarios. There’s no playbook for what we’re going through, so we just have to be nimble, prudent and realistic about this.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling MLW did get in one final taping on March 13th for the show in Tijuana, which they have not begun airing yet, so they’ll have weeks of new programming. The company is hopeful of five, if not six episodes out of the Tijuana tapings. There was one match that went long and could end up being a show unto itself.

Originally Posted by PWI The forthcoming Undertaker limited series on the WWE Network was filmed from 2017 through 2020, documenting The Undertaker from Wrestlemania 33 weekend in Orlando through current day. It was noted in the preview that aired on the WWE Network that it was the film time Undertaker has allowed his career to be documented. A number of his WrestleMania opponents and Vince McMahon have been interviewed for the series.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Dark Side of the Ring focuses on the Brawl for All tonight at 10 pm Eastern on Vice TV and available on Crave in Canada. The episode that does focus a lot on the feud between Jim Cornette and Vince Russo with Russo positioned as the brainchild of the Brawl for All after hearing John Layfield mouthing off in the locker room and wanting to see him knocked out for real. The piece begs for some reaction from Layfield, who was obviously not part of this nor will anyone with WWE ties going to be on this series this season. Others they spoke with included Jim Ross, who was head of talent relations at the time and had to call these fights, Darren Drozdov, Bart Gunn, The Godfather, and Eric ‘Butterbean’ Esch. We will be reviewing this episode later this week on Rewind-A-SmackDown.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The NWA is hosting a watch-along tonight at 6:05 pm Eastern of old Houston Wrestling. Below is the description of the footage they will stream tonight: This special presentation of Paul Boesch’s Houston Wrestling features legends of the National Wrestling Alliance like Andre The Giant, NWA Worlds Champion Harley Race who is holding the Ten Pounds of Gold, Superstar Billy Graham, Mil Mascaras, Bruiser Brody, Gino Hernandez and so many more. This video also features classic commercials from the era featuring Dusty Rhodes and others. Plus in action – Gino Hernandez & Superstar Billy Graham.

For those interested, link for the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA_n-CpjUek

Originally Posted by Fightful Rhea Ripley will be off WWE television for the foreseeable future as her work visa has expired and she has returned to Australia. Mike Johnson at PWInsider reports that Ripley returned to Australia on Monday and must now get her visa renewed. It is unknown when she will be able to return to the United States, especially given how things are in the world with the coronavirus pandemic. It is unknown if Ripley's expiring visa played a role in her losing the NXT Women's Championship to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 36. Fightful Select reported that WWE is planning on taping mass content this week, beginning on Friday with SmackDown. The company had already taped Monday's episode of WWE Raw and Wednesday's episode of NXT. The tentative plan is for the company to tape three episodes of SmackDown, three episodes of Raw, and multiple episodes of NXT through next week. Ripley will not be part of these tapings and will have to quarantine following international travel.

Originally Posted by Fightful Ric Flair has made his choice for who he believes is the top guy in WWE right now. Though his match with Edge at WrestleMania 36 came under criticism, Randy Orton did some of the best work of his career in the build-up to the match with Edge. Orton delivered personal and authentic promos while doing many of the little things that other wrestlers always notice from him. And Orton's former running mate in Evolution took notice of Orton's work. “Nobody is higher on Randy Orton than I am,” Flair told Alex McCarthy of TalkSPORT. “I think, right now, he is doing some of the best work he has ever done and I think Edge is too. Randy has done and accomplished so much and he’s been there a long time – people don’t realise this. But every time he says something, it’s the truth. And his level of ability right now and his health are both great. He’s at the top of his game, which, in my opinion, makes him the number one guy. The thing about Randy is, he’s so good that I think just because he’s been there for so long you think ‘gosh, can he get any better?’ and he just continues [to get better] if given the opportunity to shine. But I hope he retires soon so I can get my third ring [laughs]. But he’s a great talent, really, really good and an important part of WWE’s TV." If Orton is at the top of Flair's list as far as male performers go, who does he believe the top female performer is? His answer probably doesn't surprise you. “Well, you know me, people are going to say I’m biased, but she’s the female Orton. Younger, less time in the business, but she’s picked it up. The art of being able to make somebody look good and make the match the priority rather than what you are capable of doing or not doing is what separates the good from the great. She’s been in that conversation as the greatest ever since, I think, Dallas. I think the conversation becomes more solidified as the greatest ever every time she goes out there and you have an opportunity to compare her skills with somebody else. I know she was excited and looked forward to the match with Rhea, she certainly didn’t look at it as a step down. She looked at it as an opportunity to wrestle somebody else with a lot of skills and a great work ethic," said Flair. Charlotte has nearly caught Orton in terms of WWE Title reigns. Orton is a 13-time WWE/World Heavyweight Champion while Charlotte collected her 12th WWE/NXT Divas/Women's Title at WrestleMania 36 when she defeated Rhea Ripley.

Originally Posted by Fightful Edge officially returned to the ring at WWE Royal Rumble 2019, marking his first match in nearly nine years after he was forced to retire due to a neck injury ... Rumblings of Edge potentially being cleared to return began at SummerSlam 2019 when he delivered a Spear to Elias. For the next several months, Edge denied that he had been cleared despite rumors online throughout the fall and winter. After his return, reports came out that AEW had reached out to Edge about signing him. Edge reportedly told WWE that AEW offered him $3 million per year. On WWE 24, Edge confirmed that he did speak with "another company" before signing on to return in WWE. He didn't mention by AEW by name or go into detail about his discussions with the promotion. "SummerSlam happened and another company within the industry contacted me and said they were interested and wanted to know if I could wrestle. At this point, I didn't know if I could. Before I did anything, I decided I needed to find out," he said. "Some discussions were had. The one thing I told them through all of this was, 'When you give me your offer, I need to go talk to Vince.' He's done right by me my entire career. He gave me my chance. He trusted me to be able to pull off a lot of things, be a pillar for his shows, be a general. That goes a long way for me. I reached out to Vince and said, 'I need to talk to you this weekend. It needs to be face to face, not through texts or phone calls.' I went, sat down with him, and told him everything. It wasn't trying to get a bidding war going or anything like that. WWE didn't even know if this was possible. I didn't know if this was possible. He said, 'Well, this needs to happen here.'"

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Charlie Adorno, who is the fan that has attended every WrestleMania since 1985 spoke with Justin Barrasso at SI.com about the end of his own streak. Adorno told SI that he did speak with people at the company, who wanted him to attend if there was any way they could allow a select number into the WWE PC: "A couple of people internally wanted me to come. They even said that if some fans were allowed in, I’d be at the top of the list. So, there was definitely talk about the possibility, but with all of the strict guidelines, they were already at capacity for the amount of people they could have in the building. It wasn’t meant to be. If it was possible, I would have been there."

Originally Posted by Observer ECW Press announced that the Andre the Giant biography, "The Eighth Wonder of the World," will be released on 4/14. Bertrand Hebert and Pat Laprade wrote this book. I can't recommend this book highly enough because it is by far the most in-depth feature ever done on Andre, far more than any television special and also far more factual, basically it's the best source on what is and isn't real about Andre. It's great as well for fans of 70s and 80s wrestling because it goes heavy into the politics and power players, since Andre worked almost everywhere.

TPWW Frontpage:

• WWE: Edge on Last Man Standing Match, Michael Cole Promotion, Jeff Hardy Legal Update
• Ratings: WrestleMania 35 on ESPN, WrestleMania Kickoff on FS1, Total Bellas
• Impact Taping Several Episodes This Week
• WWE Planning to Tape Several More Shows Starting Friday
• More on WrestleMania 36’s Boneyard Match, Taping Length & Original Plans for Undertaker’s Entrance
• AEW Signs Anna Jay

[Droford]

Rheas Visa issue would have been nice to know last week lol

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer I'm double checking on this but one person high up just denied that to me. Again, I'm not saying Mike is wrong, in this company the left and right hand rarely know what the other is doing. But the person I checked with would know the creative reason given which was Charlotte to NXT for ratings help. Another person high up said inaccurate and she's in Orlando right now. Clearly if she isn't (although supposedly that was just checked), people who need to know don't know.

From Dave Meltzer on PWI's report of Rhea Ripley's visa expiring.

Originally Posted by Observer Heading into next week's title match, Jake Hager is officially ranked as the top challenger in AEW's men's division. Hager moved up to first in this week's AEW rankings, overtaking Chris Jericho as the top challenger in the men's division. Hager challenging Jon Moxley for the AEW World Championship in a no holds barred match will air on next Wednesday's episode of Dynamite. Aside from Hager moving up, there were no other changes in this week's AEW rankings: Men's division -- Champion: Jon Moxley (8-0 singles record in 2020, 13-2-1 overall record) Jake Hager (4-0 singles record in 2020, 5-0 overall record) Chris Jericho (0-1 singles record in 2020, 11-3-1 overall record) Cody (5-1 singles record in 2020, 12-6-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (3-0 singles record in 2020, 19-6 overall record) Darby Allin (4-2 singles record in 2020, 9-9-1 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (4-1 singles record in 2020, 9-4 overall record) Hikaru Shida (6-1 singles record in 2020, 11-5 overall record) Kris Statlander (2-3 singles record in 2020, 6-6 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) Riho (3-3 singles record in 2020, 11-6 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (6-0 tag team record in 2020, 19-6 overall record for Omega, 13-9 overall record for Page) The Dark Order (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 9-3 overall record for Evil Uno, 9-4 overall record for Stu Grayson) The Young Bucks (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 12-9 overall record for Nick Jackson, 12-9 overall record for Matt Jackson) SCU (2-3 tag team record in 2020, 16-7 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 16-6 overall record for Frankie Kazarian) The Lucha Bros (1-2 tag team record in 2020, 10-9 overall record for Pentagon Jr., 11-9 overall record for Fenix) Best Friends (3-3 tag team record in 2020, 9-14 overall record for Trent Barreta, 8-11 overall record for Chuck Taylor)

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Following the ‘Brawl For All’ episode of Dark Side of the Ring on VICE, former WWE writer John Piermarini praised Jason Eisener and Evan Husney for piecing together the episode. Piermarini also tweeted that Vince McMahon wanted to do another Brawl For All with some of the names in NXT in its original format but had to be talked out of it. Piermarini worked for WWE from 2009-2010. POST Wrestling reached out to Piermarini and he said that it happened so long ago that he can’t recount exactly how it came about and that he didn’t remember that McMahon wanted to do another Brawl For All until he [Piermarini] saw the Dark Side of the Ring episode.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling According to a report from Fightful, the tentative plan for WWE’s filming schedule is to film multiple episodes of RAW, SmackDown and NXT starting this Friday and going through the following Thursday ... To follow up on that, POST Wrestling has learned that NXT is expected to tape a lot of shows this weekend at Full Sail and up to six episodes of NXT TV will be taped over two days this weekend. The SmackDown shows are expected to be taped first, followed by RAW shoots from the Performance Center. Below is a note from the 4/7/20 POST News Update: “*Fightful Select has reported that WWE is preparing another big set of tapings beginning this Friday to cover several weeks of television for Raw, SmackDown, and NXT. We have been told at POST Wrestling through multiple sources that the tapings begin Friday at the Performance Center. One source added that NXT is expected to be taped at Full Sail University during this stretch of tapings.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated interviewed Paul “Triple H” Levesque ahead of the 4/8/20 episode of NXT. Levesque shared his thoughts about AEW besting NXT in the ratings for the past 14 weeks and had the following to say about the topic: “I’m a believer in the long-term game. You create the right product, and over time, people will find it. I think back to Monday nights years ago, and it looks different now, but there were periods of time when WWE was putting on much better shows and the content was much better, but we were still getting beat. We were not winning ‘the war,’ but we stayed true to who we were. If it’s a flash and it’s exciting at first but you can’t maintain it, then it loses that pizzazz. It’s long-term duration, for me. That’s how you win. I’ve been saying it since the beginning—I’m not concerned about those numbers week-to-week. It’s about trying to put out the best show you can every week.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling AEW Co-Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes appeared on Busted Open Radio and Bully Ray asked Cody about some of the Vince McMahon-like tendencies that the Brodie Lee character has shown on AEW Dynamite. Cody said that isn’t a spoof of McMahon but he can see some of the parallels between Lee and McMahon that can lead to the conclusion that the character is a spoof of Vince. “So I can never tell you the original plan and I don’t even know if there was an original plan and I will say, very unlikely on AEW, you’ll ever hear the name of Vince McMahon said and if you do hear me say it in interviews and in general, I always speak very highly of Vince, because, well A, he’s Vince McMahon and B, I was a WWE guy to start. I didn’t come from anywhere else. I came through their feeder system and they were the house that built me so, when it comes to some of the parallels, I don’t wanna be vague or coy with your question. When it comes to some of the parallels between Brodie’s style of leadership, there are unique parallels but I don’t think it’s particularly a spoof on Vince McMahon and maybe it’s because we’ll see how it develops in the next few weeks. I think Brodie just has a very power boss, very animal kingdom, kind of social Darwinism-type approach to the Dark Order, and I think that’s all in line with perhaps some of Vince’s quirks but, it’s not an outright spoof on the legendary Mr. McMahon. Not outright.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Gail Kim, Lita and Christy Hemme’s KAYfABE project did not reach its goal of $400,000. It had over 400 backers and tallied up $62,000.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Mark Henry appeared on the #WORDWITHSCOOP’ Instagram Live via Heavy.com. Henry said that there were conversations about him possibly ending The Undertaker’s WrestleMania streak at WrestleMania 22. “It was close, and there was some conversation about me being the one to break the streak, and if they would’ve asked me, I would’ve been like hell no! I don’t want to carry that weight [laughs]…”

Originally Posted by PWI DARK SIDE OF THE RING Season 2, lifts the veil on wrestling’s most controversial stories, and premiered on Tuesday, March 24th with a two-hour special episode on the tragic story of wrestling icon Chris Benoit. The fourth episode will tackle Jimmy Snuka and the Death of Nancy Argentino April 14 at 10:00pm ET/PT. The series, produced by VICE Studios, will air weekly on Tuesdays at 10:00pm ET/PT.

TPWW Frontpage:

• Ratings: Dark Side of the Ring, WWE Backstage, WWE 24 on FS1
• Tournament to Be Held for NXT Cruiserweight Title, Jordan Devlin Stripped
• AEW Dynamite & NXT Cards for Tonight + AEW Rankings

[Mr. Nerfect]

Oof. Sucks for Gail, Lita and Christy. You can probably raise that much for a dog's operation.

Jake Hager #1 in AEW? Fucking yikes.

I can absolutely, positively guarantee you that Charlotte Flair winning the NXT Women's Title was not done for ratings. She hasn't affected ratings before, why would she now? When Meltzer says this, he is flat-out making it up because he's buddies with the AEW guys, so he thinks every move they make is about crushing AEW into dust. It can't simply be about giving Charlotte something different to do, to fit schedules, be because of visas, or simply be a long-term booking idea. It's got to be about them ratings. It's an absolute crock. If they wanted ratings for NXT, they'd have had John Cena do something with Tommaso Ciampa for Mania or something. Goldberg would have been dropping the NXT Title to Keith Lee. It wouldn't be Charlotte Flair leading the charge, lol.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer With a show highlighted by the long-promoted final match between Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano, NXT picked up a slight win in total viewers over AEW Dynamite this week. NXT averaged 693,000 viewers on the USA Network, up 17 percent over last week and the best number NXT has done since the start of the closed set shows. NXT scored a 0.19 rating in the 18-49 demo, up 27 percent from last week. That rating failed to crack the top 50 for the day on cable, finishing at 51st. AEW Dynamite on TNT finished just behind with 692,000 viewers, almost even with last week. In 18-49, Dynamite was up one percent to a 0.26 rating and finished 32nd for the night on cable ... Detailed demos are not available for NXT since it finished outside of the top 50, but AEW was strongest in men 18-49, where it averaged a 0.35 rating, which was 14th on cable in that category.

Originally Posted by PWI The MGM Grand Garden Arena that is set to host AEW’s Double Or Nothing pay-per-view on May 23rd has suspended all operations for the time being. The Double Or Nothing event is still listed on their website for May 23rd.

Originally Posted by Observer As expected, next month's Money in the Bank pay-per-view won't be taking place at its originally scheduled venue. The Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, Maryland confirmed today that -- due to the coronavirus pandemic -- they won't be hosting Money in the Bank: "The WWE Money in the Bank event originally scheduled for Sunday, May 10 in Baltimore has been cancelled. Refunds are available at all points of purchase." Earlier this week, WWE.com hyped up Money in the Bank without mentioning the location for the PPV

Originally Posted by Observer WWE is adjourning its annual stockholders' meeting due to the coronavirus pandemic: "World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: WWE) today announced that it intends to convene and then immediately adjourn, its Annual Meeting of Stockholders due to the rapidly evolving public health concerns relating to the COVID-19 pandemic and governmental actions related thereto, including the State of Connecticut’s Executive Order No. 7H dated March 20, 2020. The Annual Meeting is scheduled to occur at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time on Thursday April 16, 2020. The Annual Meeting will be convened and then immediately adjourned to a time and place that will be announced at the meeting and by press release. The record date will remain February 20, 2020. Stockholders should comply with applicable restrictions and not attend the Annual Meeting on April 16."

WWE's stocks probably going to take a big hit as a result since the biggest things that were expected to be discussed was the Network's subs number, lack of a PPV deal with a streaming provider after Vince hyped up one being done very soon, and details on the new India TV deal that supposedly is worth less than expected.

Originally Posted by Observer The coronavirus pandemic continues to affect WWE's upcoming schedule as the company locally announced a postponement to its upcoming SmackDown UK tour as well as a set of NXT UK tapings ... Additionally, they canceled their two-day NXT UK tapings in Bournemouth, England, for May 1st and 2nd with no return date booked. The tapings were the follow-up to the also canceled NXT UK TakeOver Dublin event. The brand's annual appearance and tapings at the UK Download Festival in mid-June have also been canceled. That would make their next set of tapings on Friday, July 24th and Saturday, July 25th in Glasgow, Scotland. Their last set of tapings were held on the first weekend of March.

WWE pretty much ran out of new episodes for NXT UK and are just airing "Best Of" episodes till this summer.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE has edited out the AC/DC and Metallica songs used from the Wrestlemania 36 VOD on the WWE Network. On WWE's After the Bell, Edge noted that due to when his match with Randy Orton for Wrestlemania 36 was taped, they ended up throwing out all of their planning and the entire nearly-40 minute match was done completely on the fly. To answer the many questions we have gotten about who Produced the Charlotte Flair vs. Rhea Ripley Wrestlemania 36 match, we are told that former NWA Champion Adam Pearce was the Producer of what was the best in-ring encounter at Wrestlemania, putting it together with Flair and Ripley. The Big Show-Drew McIntyre confrontation that aired on Raw last night was designed to show how strong McIntyre was, overcoming the monstrous Big Show despite being physically spent from fighting and beating Brock Lesnar just "20 Minutes before" Show maneuvered McIntyre into a match. The idea to show McIntyre beating both Lesnar and Show in succession, taking out two of the biggest beasts in the company in one fell swoop. The segment was indeed taped several minutes after the company finished taping McIntyre vs. Lesnar. The decision to move Apollo Crews to Raw was made last week. His match with Aleister Black was taped last Friday, separate from the rest of the Raw taping for last night's broadcast.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling According to Law 360, Ric Flair’s bid to trademark “The Nature Boy” was rejected. The Trademark Trail and Appeal Board stated that the nickname is too similar to the clothing line “Nature Boys” and both are attempting to sell merchandise using the name.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Paige did a live stream on her Twitch channel with Peyton Royce, Natalya, Renee Young, Nia Jax and Billie Kay. During their chat, Nia Jax talked about coming to the defense of Alexa Bliss when Alexa was working with an opponent that went unnamed and continued to get hurt. Nia said that Alexa did not want to complain to the higher-ups so Nia spoke up on behalf of Alexa to stop her from consistently getting injured. “I remember back when — I’m not gonna mention any names but, Lexi, other than Lexi’s name,” Nia laughed. “But when Lexi was working an angle and she was continuously getting hurt in a certain angle with somebody, and I remember her not saying anything, specifically because she wanted to be a team player. She was so nervous, she wanted to be a team player. She didn’t wanna be somebody who like, ‘Oh, I can’t do this’ but, me personally, from the outside looking in, I was so angry. I was like, ‘No, she can not do this anymore.’ I personally would not allow her to get back in the ring to get hurt again. I had to go to the higher-ups and I had to put down a stern foot and say, ‘Listen, Lexi is five-foot-nothing, 100 pounds getting thrown around like a little rag doll and injured every night.’ I was like, ‘Put me in. I’m a 6’0, 300 pound b*tch. I can handle it.’ So I understand there’s a certain thing of being quiet and taking it and being like, ‘No, I wanna be a team player’ and then there’s the other side where it’s like, ‘Sh*t dude, I can’t allow to see one of my good friends — not only my good friend but my co-worker who I want to be here in five years so I can continue to work her, like getting hurt.’ Like I need to stand up and be there for her and make sure that her life is gonna be okay when she’s done here.”

Link: https://twitter.com/flairsnia/status...969789952?s=20

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Jake Roberts appeared on a recent edition of The Wrestling INC Daily Podcast and Jake revealed that he is currently in Atlanta quarantining in a Marriott hotel and has been there for quite some time. Roberts was previously living with Diamond Dallas Page and due to the Coronavirus outbreak, Dallas told Jake that if he left the property, he couldn’t come back. Jake ultimately decided to leave the property to go appear for AEW. “I’m stuck in a hotel. Of all damn places to be stuck, I’m stuck in a damn hotel. I’m on the 16th floor at the Marriott in Atlanta and the restaurant’s shut down so I’m having food brought to me and… I’m quarantined. I’m quarantined in here. I was living with Dallas [DDP]. Whenever all this started, Dallas was one of the first people to say, ‘Hey man, I’m locking down and if you leave, you can’t come back.’ Well, AEW wanted me to come out so, what’d I do? I went and did [it] but then I couldn’t go back to Dallas’ house because he had a baby in the house and nobody needs to get sick, especially not a baby, and he took the hard line and said, ‘Dude if you leave, you can’t come back.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I gotta do this Dallas. It’s for AEW and I wanna help these guys.’ So, now I’m paying for it brother.” In regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, Roberts believes that the pro wrestling industry should go on hold. He commended AEW for taping a bunch of content to fill TV time over the next couple of weeks and/or months but still believes that the business needs to be put on hold until further notice. “Yes, I think it should happen. I really do man. We gotta buckle down, and if you look on the television and still see live wrestling then that tells me people aren’t buckling down. As much as I hate it, we gotta do what’s smart and I’m not a doctor or anything but that’s all I hear on television. We got to go home. Just go home and stay there until this sh*t’s gone and it sounds to me like AEW is doing that too. The last taping they did, I know they taped a lot of matches so they [did] several weeks of shows and it seems that’s what they were kind of doing too. Trying to get guys to go home and taking care of business, keeping everybody safe.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Taz was the latest guest to join Aubrey Edwards and Tony Schiavone on the AEW Unrestricted podcast ... Taz also spoke about his WWE debut at the 2000 Royal Rumble pay-per-view against Kurt Angle. Taz stated that he knew he was doomed in WWE when he heard the reaction from the crowd because from his point of view, WWE was not fond of guys who already made their name outside of the company and by him getting that reaction, it solidified that he made a name outside of WWE. “When I wrestled Kurt [Angle] at the Garden, when I came out, like when I heard that pop, I knew I was f*cked. I knew I was doomed. I knew it. I knew it because it was massive and again, it was before the big craze of the internet and all that sh*t and people didn’t know I was gonna be there. It was a legit surprise and a legit pop in the world’s most famous arena, and the reason I know I was doomed is because that pop did not come from WWE. I was a made guy before I got to WWE, and WWE at that time — they never would admit it then and they won’t admit it now; they don’t want made guys. They wanna make guys. So that’s what happened. So as I’m walking out with the towel on my head looking bad as a motherf*cker, I’m saying to myself, ‘Oh my God, shut up. Don’t cheer, don’t pop. Just boo me, do something. Don’t do nothing.’ Even though it was an awesome feeling, I knew I was…”

Probably can pinpoint to his ECW champ vs. WWF champ match against Triple H where WWE no longer considered him as a potential big star.


TPWW Frontpage:

• Jerry Lawler Says He’s Returning to Raw on Monday
• Killer Kross and Scarlett Bordeaux Appear Briefly on NXT
• Edge Responds to Criticism Over His Match Against Randy Orton

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

There were an endless number of stories coming out of the first-ever taped two-day WrestleMania presentation on 4/4 and 4/5 at the Performance Center in Orlando. Perhaps the biggest and most-discussed was whether the show should have taken place at this time. There are two ways of looking at it. The first is the health and risk aspect, and basically the show was no more or less dangerous in theory than the television tapings that WWE and AEW have been doing regularly. The second is business. It looks bad now, but if WWE isn’t able to have shows in arena by around September, then it might as well be done now. If it’s earlier, then they gave up tens of millions of dollars by being stubborn. Unlike with UFC, where the money comes from just doing the show, with WWE, for WrestleMania, the money comes from the live gate, the merchandise, the network subscription increases and to a smaller extent, whatever is left of PPV ... But the most important number will come in a few weeks when the company either does, or doesn’t announce the network subscriber number on the day after WrestleMania, usually the high point of the year. The paid number the day after last year was 1,767,000 worldwide. Nobody expects the number to be that high this year for all the obvious reasons ... If the number is significantly lower, it’s was a bad idea because at that point the reason to run didn’t come through and essentially they squandered the biggest thing they have, the name WrestleMania, based on timing. Right now the only people who know are those internally and the fact they have release numbers that are the numbers usually the con businesses use, social media engagement numbers which have no correlation to actual revenue, but not the important number, was notable ... Another story were the three unique matches. Undertaker vs. A.J. Styles was basically a long outdoor movie fight scene in a graveyard setting. It was tremendous for what it was, although all three of the matches were very polarizing with people loving and hating them. Michael Hayes was the guy in charge of this feature and it was so good people were calling for Undertaker to do these mini-movies every year since he may not be able to deliver great in-ring matches, but this could become the new Undertaker feature at WrestleMania ... However, doing things like this could run its course. Paul Levesque was also said to be very key in this being put together, and one person said he was the key person in that regard and it was largely the NXT crew shooting it, or the technical term, the WWE Performance Center Content Innovation Lab, headed by Jeremy Borash, who was along with Matt Hardy the key to the Final Deletion and similar shows in TNA, James Long, Cornell Gunter, Ryan Katz, Andrew Karr, Mark Donica and others. Many of the same group were in charge of the Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa shoot that was down that same week and aired on 4/8. Because of the finish where Styles was buried alive, and WWE’s perverse set of rules in that you can be electrocuted to death and be fine the next week, or things like that, but buried alive is actually adhered to, Styles will be out of action. It likely won’t be for long since he’s considered so valuable and they don’t have much depth on the heel side of Raw right now and have a babyface champion.

As far as actual early numbers, as notable, they’re not good. At press time, the WWE Network had more viewers for day one, even though Sunday is the familiar day. The Sunday pregame show, with Liv Morgan vs. Natalya, did the better of the two on the WWE Network and on television. Even though day one was better overall, it still got a mixed reaction and maybe people having seen a three plus hour show weren’t ready to see one another day. Google searches were even more pronounced. WrestleMania would be expected to do three to four million Google searches. It should be about that number for each show. The Saturday show did 1 million, way under expectations. Sunday did 270,000 (including Monday), which is so low as to be beyond shocking, and only 50,000 of that was for WrestleMania, as the breakdown was 100,000 for Flair, 50,000 for McIntyre, Cena and 20,000 for Mandy Rose. It was as if the public saw Saturday as the show, but even 1 million is the level of a B UFC PPV show and WrestleMania is usually better than Jon Jones level and this did half of Jones. Sunday was below the level of a Demetrious Johnson level PPV show. The preshow on FS 1 for Saturday did a 0.1 rating and 106,000 viewers and 44,000 (0.03 rating; 29,000 men; 15,000 women) in 18-49. The peak was 129,000 in the second quarter, while the only match, Cesaro vs. Drew Gulak, did 125,000 viewers. Excluding news shows, the show was No. 97 on cable during its one hour. FS 1 averages 120,000 in the time slot this year while last year had 824,000 viewers in the time slot since it was UFC prelims. The Sunday pre-show did a 0.1 rating and 112,000 viewers, with 56,000 (0.04 rating; 43,000 men; 13,000 women) in 18-49. The peak was 132,000 viewers for Liv Morgan vs. Natalya. FS 1 averages 117,000 in the time slot and last year did 250,000. Excluding news shows, the show was No. 92 on cable during its hour. For a comparison, the preshow last year on USA did a 0.5 rating and 749,000 viewers and an 0.26 rating in 18-49. It was going to do less on FS 1 than USA, and the Sunday show went head-to-head with ESPN airing the Ronda Rousey vs. Charlotte Flair vs. Becky Lynch match from last year’s Mania, which had already been on Raw six days earlier.

The next story involves the changes in the show. Even though Roman Reigns left for health concerns on 3/26, over the next week he was still advertised for his title shot at Bill Goldberg on the ensuing Smackdown and Raw show. When Levesque was asked about it, he talked about the creative way they were going to tell the story. As it turned out, that never existed. It was the weirdest thing. On the Smackdown show the night before the match, they were running down the card and mentioned Goldberg vs. Strowman in passing. Reigns was never mentioned again on television or either night of the PPV, even if he was all over the video packages and the advertising mainstream for the show ... The Reigns situation is pretty much unknown. Essentially it is said to be up to Reigns when he returns and that nobody knows. If he was worried about his health, and with three kids, he should be, it’s not as if the situation changes and after WrestleMania the dangers are no longer there. Some have noted it isn’t wise for him, and others who have any immune system issues, to be working until this is over, whatever that means because it’s not a snap your fingers and on this day it’s over. Reigns appeared to be the only wrestler who pulled himself off the show, although everyone was told they didn’t have to come. The only others who would be noticeable immediately that weren’t there were Mauro Ranallo, Nigel McGuinness and Beth Phoenix, the NXT announcing team. Phoenix may have still been off to sell the Randy Orton injuries. It would have been a fitting finish to have her involved in a small way at the finish, maybe in trying to first talk Edge out of doing the concerto finish and then either he does it, or she changes his mind and he does it. But that’s a small deal. Ranallo and McGuinness have been off NXT since Californians have been urged to stay inside. Ranallo wasn’t in Orlando for the taping of the 4/8 NXT show, but he did solo voiceovers on the show, believed to be from a home studio .

As far the show itself ... there were matches that were stopped and re-shot after moves were missed.

They did want Hogan for this year’s WrestleMania but the two sides couldn’t come to financial terms. This would not be to wrestle, but for an appearance

Regarding the Flair title win, the decision was made so Flair would be a champion on NXT with the idea a main roster star is what NXT needs to close the ratings gap. Flair is scheduled to work both Raw and NXT for now. Given there are no house shows, it’s not like doing so gives her an unbearable schedule. She should help the NXT women’s division. That said, the result itself, let alone winning clean via submission with the figure eight, makes no sense. Flair really gained nothing for the win. The NXT title doesn’t enhance her. Some would say it’s a step back, but I wouldn’t say that. Beating Flair would have greatly enhanced Ripley, and would have made for a better series of returns in NXT, and made NXT fans happy and having reason to hate Flair, who could be a big heel in NXT, with an obsession of beating Ripley and getting thwarted. Instead, it cut off Ripley’s legs as she was rising, plus, to protect her, nearly any finish other than that was done would have been better. It was that classic somebody gets hot, and they even took advantage of it, and now wanted to make clear she’s really not at the level of the real stars.

By putting what was supposed to be the main event of the biggest NXT Takeover of the year, the Johnny Gargano vs. Tommaso Ciampa final, NXT beat AEW 693,000 to 692,000 in total viewers, but AEW still won 0.26 to 0.19 in the 18-49 demo. I would have expected a slight NXT win in total viewers, but more than it was, and AEW still winning in the key numbers because the gap to close was too large. Numbers are going to be down at this point so I wouldn’t read much into this. One would expect that with AEW pushing a Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager title match hard for next week, while NXT wasn’t pushing anything, that AEW should probably win handily in total viewers next week, unless something this week was greatly negative for AEW or greatly positive for NXT. AEW was No. 32 for the night in the demo on a night dominated by news shows. AEW did lose to Black Ink Crew 8B on VH-1, Forged in Fire on the History Channel, Sistas Series on BET, Married at First on Lifetime, My 600 Pound life on TLC and Guys Grocery Games on The Food Network, making it seventh in entertainment. NXT was 11th in entertainment in 18-49 and 51st overall. The one hour Gargano-Ciampa presentation helped NXT increase 17 percent overall and 22 percent in 18-49 over this past week. Because it didn’t crack the top 50, we don’t have any other details. AEW was up one percent in viewers and one percent in 18-49. In the key demos, AEW had the 58,000 to 44,000 edge in Males 18-34, NXT had a 36,000 to 31,000 edge in Women 18-34, AEW had a 166,000 to 114,000 edge in Males 35-49 and AEW had a 76,000 to 48,000 edge in Women 35-49. The totals in 18-49 were 331,000 for AEW and 242,000 for NXT.

A few notes regarding the 4/1 Wednesday night ratings. While the empty arena format is the main reason both shows were down, the AEW movie lead-in was down 30 percent from the prior week. At the time both prior shows ended, USA had 1,012,000 viewers and TNT had 647,000. As soon as wrestling started, in the first minute, USA lost 215,000 viewers and TNT gained 106,000 viewers. Still, AEW was first for the week with 1.39 viewers per home ... Overall, even though the viewership difference overall was 685,000 to 590,000 and both did much lower than usual in the most important 18-49, it was 328,000 for AEW and 199,000 for NXT. So compared to every other week to date, wrestling did the worst ever in the key demo, even against Trump speeches and World Series games ... AEW dominated every quarter in 18-49, however in overall, due to over 50 viewers, NXT won the main event quarter, doing 608,000 viewers for the Keith Lee North American title defense against Dominik Dijakovic and Damien Priest, while AEW did 607,000 for Cody & Darby Allin vs. Sammy Guevara & Shawn Spears. However, even that quarter was a huge edge in 18-49 with AEW at 308,000 to NXT’s 203,000 ... AEW’s first quarter drew 703,000 viewers and 341,000 in 18-49 for Kenny Omega vs. Trent, while NXT drew 668,000 viewers and 244,000 in 18-49 for Velveteen Dream vs. Bobby Fish. In the second quarter, AEW lost 29,000 viewers and 23,000 in 18-49 for the end of Omega vs. Trent and a replay of the Chris Jericho/Matt Hardy angle. NXT lost 68,000 viewers and 23,000 in 18-49 for the end of Dream vs. Fish, the post-match and the Dexter Lumis vs. Jake Atlas match. In the third quarter, AEW gained 25,000 viewers and 4,000 in 18-49 for Hikaru Shida vs. Anna Jayy. NXT lost 50,000 viewers and 36,000 in 18-49 for a replay of the Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano brawl and Shotzi Blackheart vs. Deonna Purrazzo. In the fourth quarter, AEW gained 26,000 viewers and 19,000 in 18-49 for the video package with Jon Moxley and Jake Hager and Lance Archer vs. Marko Stunt. NXT lost 10,000 viewers and 19,000 in 18-49 for Blackheart vs. Xia Li, Blackheart vs. Aliyah and Blackheart vs Kayden Carter. This may have been the least watched segment in 18-49, with just 166,000 viewers, since NXT has been on the air. In the fifth quarter, AEW lost 18,000 viewers but gained 1,000 in 18-49 for the Brodie Lee backstage segment and Dustin Rhodes & QT Marshall vs. 8 & 9. NXT gained 52,000 viewers and 31,000 in 18-49 for Blackheart vs Dakota Kai. In the sixth quarter, AEW lost 13,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49 for the Chris Jericho/Vanguard 1 segment and Nick & Matt Jackson preparing for a return. NXT lost 39,000 and 15,000 in 18-49 for Kushida vs. Joaquin Wilde. In the seventh quarter, AEW lost 22,000 viewers and 3,000 in 18-49 for the first part of Cody & Allin vs. Guevara & Spears. NXT gained 57,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49 for another Ciampa/Gargano package plus the beginning of Lee vs. Dijakovic vs. Priest. In the eighth quarter, ending both main events, AEW lost 65,000 viewers and 17,000 in 18-49 for its main event while NXT lost 2,000 viewers but gained 7,000 in 18-49 for the ending of its main event.

The kidnapping spots on NXT are to lead to the introduction of Jorge Bolly, or whatever name El Hijo del Fantasma will go by. It’s the Simbianese Liberation Army storyline where the captives sympathize with their captors and Raul Mendoza and Joaquin Wilde become his Patty Hearsts

AEW finished a marathon set of tapings on 4/2 in Decatur, GA, at Q.T. Marshall’s school. The tapings were done with a skeleton crew. Unlike WWE and UFC, talent from certain parts of the country were not going to be brought in, most notably California and New York City. In addition, all talent was told that they didn’t have to come and they would be paid in full. The tapings were for Dynamite and Dark through as long as 5/20. Depending on the situation, it is possible they could do another taping in early or mid-May, but if not, they have enough covered and there won’t be any tapings for several weeks. AEW used mostly talent that lives in the Southeast and a few from Texas, but will have footage of talent not there for television. Jon Moxley, who is based in Las Vegas, had his 4/15 title match with Jake Hager taped at the prior set of tapings. Jim Ross will be used as the commentator for this specific match, doing voiceovers from home, as it will be from Daily’s Place in Jacksonville while the rest of the show next week will be from Decatur, GA. Aubrey Edwards, who is based in Seattle, stayed in the area since this started as Tony Khan also told talent that they could avoid flying back-and-forth if they wanted to stay in Jacksonville or in the area and the company would pay for their lodging through this set of tapings. The TNT tournament is taped up until the finals. Tony Schiavone and Chris Jericho will be the announcing team for all the remaining shows from Georgia. The next major event, the 5/23 Double or Nothing show, remains up in the air. There are three choices, all obvious, based on what will be allowed in Las Vegas. The show is booked for the MGM Grand and was about 1,500 ticket shy of being sold out a month ago, but it’s doubtful many if any tickets have moved in recent weeks ... The AEW Southern California crew, notably The Young Bucks, SCU, Peter Avalon and Brandon Cutler, along with Simon Lotto and Steven Andrews taped matches for Being the Elite this past week. The bouts were basic matches, actually quite good wrestling-wise but toned down in the risk department, Excalibur doing voiceover work completely tongue-in-cheek. The location was a ring set up on a tennis and basketball court that was in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. Excalibur called it the AEW Compound and would talk of a capacity crowd with nobody else there ...

Impact is taping this week at Skyway Studios in Nashville even though Nashville is shut down. It is believed that wrestling is able to tape during shutdowns, and at least in Tennessee this is the case, because the Tennessee shutdown exempts media and the claim is this is a closed studio doing a television media event ... For Impact, as opposed to the other two companies, there is more of a need because their contract with television in India is based on providing a certain number of shows, which include weekly television and 12 other events. The India deal is believed to be the largest revenue stream the company has. The attempt is to tape for as long as two months, including the Rebellion show that has been pushed. That show was to take place on 4/19 in New York, which isn’t happening ... A big problem is that the PPV was to be build around a Tessa Blanchard vs. Michael Elgin vs. Eddie Edwards title match, and the word going around which is confirmed is that Blanchard, the Impact men’s world champion, who is based in California, is not leaving the state at this time ... The plan a few weeks ago was to tape the shows in Houston at Booker T’s gym, which is notable but because Impact has fallen so far, it is AEW, and not Impact, on the WWE’s enemy list. The plan was also to tape not this week there and it was changed because they felt the need to get it done now due to the risk of not being able to get it done if they waited until the normal timetable.

For Dark Side of the Ring ... While the first episode on Chris Benoit was very well received, the second on New Jack from those who know the story was not. There were complaints that they glorified him far too much particularly the way he was fawned over on the post-show. They ran with a lot of stories that were fiction, particularly in the post-show. There were a lot of things not discussed, such as the fact Smoky Mountain Wrestling, where he got his first break, saw attendance decline significantly during the period he was pushed so the idea of inciting fans racially backfired. That didn’t happen in ECW and he was very popular with that fan base for short spots, where he’d come in, with music playing, do a short brawl and often dive from high places. Vic Grimes claimed at the funeral of Roland Alexander that everything he and New Jack did was them working together and that they were friends, contrary to how New Jack described things.

Konnan said that Rey Horus signing here [ROH] doesn’t affect his status with AAA, but if Horus goes to New Japan through his deal with ROH, at that point he wouldn’t be able to work anymore with AAA, because CMLL would go to New Japan and New Japan would go to ROH and nix it

Due to the virus, the situation in Japan has changed once again. Before, nobody wanted to sell to WWE and now with most companies in tough financial straits, it’s become a buyers market and it is believed companies that otherwise wouldn’t sell would be willing to do so and WWE could have a local infrastructure and start being a force in that market. The general belief is that with MMA no longer a big deal except for a few shows a year, that the only thing that can threaten New Japan, past a current act of God, wouldn’t be another company in the market, but WWE in the market with roots which always could have happened but now the odds are significantly better to make such a deal

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer There was both good and bad news for Raw last night when it comes to the ratings. The bad news is that the 1.91 million viewer average would be the lowest in modern history for a live episode, falling just under the 1.92 million for the Raw go-home show for WrestleMania. The good news is that the audience largely stayed for all three hours with just an eight percent first-to-third hour drop. This means some combination of two factors, that the show itself and the Drew McIntyre vs. Andrade main event kept those who at least tuned in at first interested, and/or that the low first hour, under two million viewers, is down to the hardcores that will stay no matter what. It's likely more the former, given many shows have done worse than hour three, but the starting point was so low to make it the least-watched Raw except for Christmas week taped shows in 2018 and 2019. Raw finished in the No. 3, No. 5 and No. 7 spots in 18-49 ... For total viewers, the show was down nine percent from last week, but in 18-49, the decline was 20 percent. It was down 25 percent overall and 38 percent in 18-49 from the same week last year, but that was also a special draft episode, and the circumstances are completely different ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.99 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.91 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.83 million viewers

Originally Posted by PWI We have been told by a number of readers that they woke up this morning to find they had received refunds from Ticketmaster.com for Wrestlemania 36. If you are waiting for a refund, you should you check your credit or debit card accounts

Originally Posted by Observer The status of the NXT Tag Team titles will be addressed this week. WWE announced last night that William Regal is appearing on Wednesday morning's episode of WWE's The Bump and will address the NXT Tag Team title picture: "What news will @RealKingRegal have for us this week? The #WWENXT GM stops by #WWETheBump to address the @WWENXT Tag Team Championship picture, this Wednesday at 10am ET!"

Originally Posted by Observer WWE’s Ask WWE Network Twitter account noted that episodes of NXT now aren’t being made available on-demand in the United Kingdom until seven days after they originally air in the country ... For those who have asked about changes in getting to see NXT on the WWE Network in certain countries, there are cities where the first-run is delayed based on local television contracts that the local station put in to protect their television rights.

Originally Posted by Fightful Jim Ross is often called the greatest pro wrestling announcer in history, with many not batting an eye before putting him right on to the Mount Rushmore of wrestling announcers. Now, Jim Ross is revealing his own personal Mount Rushmore of wrestling announcers. Speaking on the Top Rope Nation Podcast, Jim took some time to heap praise on those that paved the way for him and some that he was lucky to work with over the course of a career that spans across multiple decades. "Gordon Solie, Bob Caudill, Lance Russell, Gorilla Monsoon would be four off the top of my head that I would put on there,” Ross revealed. “If you included color guys, color commentators, that would certainly include Bobby Heenan, who may be the best all-around performer I've ever worked with, as far as being an outstanding wrestler, a great heel, a manager, a host, a color guy. He excelled in everything he did. And nobody in that era was better or that area was better than Bobby, in my view. So Bobby Heenan would be on that list, Paul Heyman would be one, Jerry Lawler would be one. Lawler, Heyman, Cornette (was a) great color guy....When you ask the announcers, I just assumed it was like my role as a play by play guy. So those four I mentioned I think would be there quite easily. There's a very subjective list like everything else, but there's my favorites."

Originally Posted by PWI A number of readers sent word that material the WWE Network made free for all to stream (after signing up with an email account) has now returned to being exclusive content for paid Network subscribers. WWE announced on 3/23 that were making certain content free to stream for a limited period of time due to the coronavirus pandemic, including every WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, Survivor Series, NXT TakeOver and NXT UK TakeOver events, WWE 24, Ruthless Aggression and The Monday Night War documentary series and more.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Sports Illustrated has a sobering view of the level of sophistication for major league sports to return to play even in empty arena settings. It’s mind-boggling to read this and the preventive measures necessary while WWE is going to have people traveling weekly to shows. In the feature, epidemiologist Zach Binney predicts there will be sports events involving fans until there is a vaccine that could be 12-18 months away. Regarding empty arena games, SI spoke to numerous experts and before anything could be started, every person involved would need to be isolated for two weeks and be tested multiple times during that period. In WWE’s case, they are no living at the PC in isolation but instead, going home either by car or by plane and expected to do so every seven days. They are also assessing sports that have much less body-to-body contact that professional wrestling necessitates. Below is a portion of the article: Conversations with experts painted a picture of what exactly it would take to make these sports vacuums a reality. Before any of this can begin, every person who would have access to the facilities will need to be isolated separately for two weeks to ensure that no infection could enter. That’s players and coaches, athletic trainers and interpreters, reporters and broadcasters, plus housekeeping and security personnel. No one can come in or out. Food will have to be delivered. Hotel and stadium employees will have to be paid enough to compensate for their time away from their families. Everyone on site will have to be tested multiple times during this initial period. All right, so the 14-day period is over and everyone has tested negative at least twice. Now they are allowed to begin spending time around one another—but not too much time. If one person gets it, he or she will begin spreading it immediately, so everyone will have to continue practicing social distancing. That probably means using a new ball for each play. It probably means seating players in stands rather than on benches or in dugouts. It certainly means banning high-fives. All personnel must continue to be tested daily. We will be unlikely to have enough rapid testing by then, so they will probably have to settle for the tests that take several hours to produce results. That means the testing will probably run a day behind.

Link: https://www.si.com/mlb/2020/04/10/sp...ming-back-soon

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Amy Weber, who worked for WWE after participating in the first Diva Search in 2004, posted a video explaining why she left the company. She was complimentary of talents such as Big Show, Eddy Guerrero, and JBL. She said most of the women in the locker room were nice to her, but she didn’t come up in wrestling and said it probably rubbed some people the wrong way. She left in the company in February 2005 and explained that it occurred after a series of events following an injury while practicing with Joy Giovanni. Weber said she suffered an injury to her tailbone and was instructed by the doctor to get two Ibuprofen pills and ice from the men’s locker room and some ice. Later, while on a flight to Alaska, she was sleeping across three seats and was awoken when Randy Orton charged at the seats knocking her onto the floor. She went back to sleep and awoken a second time when a drink had been poured onto her. She saw Edge with the same colored drink and accused him of pouring it, which he denied to her. Weber landed in Alaska and informed Shane McMahon she was done with the company.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kWUpBZtr4c

Originally Posted by Fightful NWA will be bringing fans extra content this week in lieu of the previously scheduled 2020 Crockett Cup event. On Tuesday, April 14, NWA will air the build for the 2019 Crockett Cup, which was headlined by Marty Scurll vs. Nick Aldis. The show will debut in NWA's usual 6:05 p.m. ET spot on YouTube. Then, on Sunday, April 19, at 7 p.m. ET, NWA will re-air the 2019 Crockett Cup. The 2020 Crockett Cup was scheduled to air live on pay-per-view on Sunday, but was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. The rematch between Scurll and Aldis was the headlining bout for this year's edition of the show. Furthermore, NWA will air new content on April 21 at 6:05 p.m. ET as a brand new special featuring Kamille will debut. The special will feature Kamilla's wrestling debut.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On Monday night, it was revealed by Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings that WWE falls into the category of ‘essential businesses’ within the state of Florida. Orange County has been hit with a lot of criticism and is deflecting by stating this was a decision made by the state and not the county. On their official Twitter feed, Orange County is directing critics of the classification to contact the office of Governor Ron DeSantis ... I have reached out to several promotions regarding this classification within Florida and if they are considering running in the state and below are the statements we received at POST Wrestling on Tuesday from Ring of Honor and MLW: Joe Koff of ROH: "I think it’s great for WWE that they are able to operate how they see fit, or how they may even need to for their business. It doesn’t necessarily change our approach to the pandemic though. The safety of all of our performers, staff, vendors, and fans are the most important thing to us right now and we are continuing to improve our infrastructure and find ways to connect with them during this time. Are we eager to get back? Absolutely. For now, we will be monitoring day by day." From Court Bauer at MLW: "No. I will not put my athletes, crew and staff along with their families at risk of contracting the virus."

Originally Posted by Fightful Donald Trump wants his sports back. During his press conference on Tuesday, Donald Trump discussed re-opening the economy and putting together a group of advisors, all from the sports world, to help him in doing so. Trump named WWE Chairman "The Great" Vince McMahon and UFC President Dana White as part of the advisory team.

Originally Posted by Fightful On Monday, WWE was publicly deemed an "essential business" by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The new executive order allows WWE, and any professional sports and media production with a national audience, to hold events as long as the location is closed to the general public. "Obviously, WWE, there's no crowd so it's a very small number of people," he said. "We look at it on a case-by-case basis. We haven't had a huge amount of requests. A lot of this will be 'what do we look like in May?' rather than doing stuff now. The one thing I do support is, we do need to support content, especially sports and events. We're not going to have crowds there, I get that. If NASCAR does a race and can televise it, I think that's a good thing. I'd like to see [Tiger] Woods and [Phil] Mickelson golf. That's social distance. I think people are starved for content. We haven't had new content since the middle of March. If people are told to say closer to the house, it sure does help to have fresh things to do. People are chomping at the bit. I think people, to be able to have some light at the end of the tunnel and see things get back on a better course, I think from a psychological perspective, it's a good thing."

Originally Posted by Fightful There may not be a new WWE 2K game this year. Former WWE SmackDown vs. Raw video game series writer Justin Leeper posted a video on YouTube claiming he's heard from reliable sources that WWE 2K21 has been canceled. Leeper continued, 2K is publishing a different kind of WWE game from a different developer that's not Visual Concepts. Leeper went on to say that WWE 2K22 won't be released on next generation consoles. Leeper previously reported that the budget for WWE 2K21 would be slashed and developers had quit after the release of WWE 2K20, which underperformed in sales and was heavily criticized by fans due to glitches. Yuke's and 2K split months before the game was set to release, which reportedly contributed to the problems in WWE 2K20. Fightful reached out to 2K for comment, but were not given a response. Alex McCarthy of TalkSPORT reached out to 2K about the report and was given the following response. “We don’t comment on rumors and speculation.”

Originally Posted by 411Mania WrestleVotes reports that the mood at the WWE Performance Center ahead of tonight’s live RAW is that of uncertainty, with some of the talent feeling as if they shouldn’t be there. “Source states mood at the PC today is that of uncertainty. Many know they shouldn’t be there, but realize this is their job. And as unfortunate as it may sound, they can all pull out 1 by 1, and the show will still go on. WWE will always have a big enough roster to continue.”

TPWW Frontpage:

• Florida Declared WWE an “Essential Business,” Allowing Them to Continue Doing Shows (Update)
• More on WWE Being Declared an “Essential Service” in Florida
• AEW Double or Nothing Will Still Take Place Next Month, But Not in Las Vegas
• Impact Rebellion Will Air as a Two Week TV Special

[DaveWadding]

Originally Posted by Smeat WrestleVotes reports that the mood at the WWE Performance Center ahead of tonight’s live RAW is that of uncertainty, with some of the talent feeling as if they shouldn’t be there. “Source states mood at the PC today is that of uncertainty. Many know they shouldn’t be there, but realize this is their job. And as unfortunate as it may sound, they can all pull out 1 by 1, and the show will still go on. WWE will always have a big enough roster to continue.”

THE SHOW MUST GO ON DAMMIT. RAW TONIGHT IS DANNY BURCH WRESTLING HIMSELF FOR 3 HOURS. WHO IS DANNY BURCH, ANYWAYS? YOU WANT A STEAK WRAP, PAL?

[Evil Vito]

Vince said in a conference call today that there will be substantial talent and staff cuts very soon.

[xrodmuc316]

Originally Posted by Conspiracy Victim Vito Vince said in a conference call today that there will be substantial talent and staff cuts very soon.

I'm ok with furloughs, but if Vince cuts wrestlers then that bullshit about them being a family and being important to provide entertainment to their fans needs to stop. Vince cares about $ and nothing else.

[drave]

Typically, any work environment that runs that "We're like family" is toxic AF and should be an "interview" red flag.

[xrodmuc316]

Originally Posted by drave Typically, any work environment that runs that "We're like family" is toxic AF and should be an "interview" red flag.

100% right

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Representatives from seven Japanese promotions joined together today to take part in a government meeting regarding how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the professional wrestling industry in Japan. The meeting included representatives from NJPW, Stardom, AJPW, DDT, Pro Wrestling NOAH, Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling, and World Women’s Wrestling Diana. They met with Hiroshi Hase, the former pro wrestling star who now serves as Japan's Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. Here's the list of those who attended the meeting: Hiroshi Hase (lower house minister, Liberal Democratic Party) Sports Board, Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry Representative (unnamed) Takaaki Kidani (Company director, Bushiroad Group) Hiroshi Tanahashi (New Japan Pro-Wrestling) Naoki Sugabayashi (Chairman, New Japan Pro-Wrestling) Suwama (All Japan Pro-Wrestling) Takenori Fukuda (Representative Director, All Japan Pro-Wrestling) HARASHIMA (DDT Pro-Wrestling) Akira Takahashi (Operating Executive, DDT Pro-Wrestling) Naomichi Marufuji (Executive Vice President, NOAH Global Entertainment) Masashi Ishiguro (Head of Public Relations, NOAH Global Entertainment) Mayu Iwatani (STARDOM) Katsuhiko Harada (Representative Director, Bushiroad Fight) Yuka Sakazaki (Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling) Tetsuya Kouda (Representative, Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling) Kyoko Inoue (World Women’s Wrestling Diana) Taishi Fuwa (World Women’s Wrestling Diana) NJPW wrote that the representatives met with Hase "with the goal of presenting a request for coronavirus testing kits for wrestlers and staff in the industry, as well as support to cover pay for wrestlers as events have canceled under Japan’s current state of emergency in reaction to the virus."

Originally Posted by Observer There are a few changes to AEW's roster rankings this week. Cody has moved ahead of Chris Jericho and is now ranked second in the men's division. In the main event of last Wednesday's Dynamite, Cody defeated Shawn Spears to advance to the semifinals of the TNT Championship tournament. Britt Baker has fallen one spot in the women's division. She was ranked fourth prior to losing to Hikaru Shida on Dynamite last week. Best Friends have moved up two spots in the tag team division. They defeated Kenny Omega & Michael Nakazawa last week. Here are this week's full rankings: Men's division -- Champion: Jon Moxley (8-0 singles record in 2020, 13-2-1 overall record) Jake Hager (4-0 singles record in 2020, 5-0 overall record) Cody (6-1 singles record in 2020, 13-6-1 overall record Chris Jericho (0-1 singles record in 2020, 11-3-1 overall record) Kenny Omega (3-0 singles record in 2020, 19-7 overall record) Darby Allin (4-2 singles record in 2020, 9-9-1 overall record) Women's division -- Champion: Nyla Rose (4-1 singles record in 2020, 9-4 overall record) Hikaru Shida (7-1 singles record in 2020, 12-5 overall record) Kris Statlander (2-3 singles record in 2020, 6-6 overall record) Yuka Sakazaki (1-1 singles record in 2020, 1-4 overall record) Riho (3-3 singles record in 2020, 11-6 overall record) Britt Baker (2-3 singles record in 2020, 10-7 overall record) Tag team division -- Champions: Kenny Omega & Hangman Page (6-0 tag team record in 2020, 19-7 overall record for Omega, 13-9 overall record for Page) The Dark Order (5-0 tag team record in 2020, 9-3 overall record for Evil Uno, 9-4 overall record for Stu Grayson) The Young Bucks (2-2 tag team record in 2020, 12-9 overall record for Nick Jackson, 12-9 overall record for Matt Jackson) Best Friends (4-3 tag team record in 2020, 10-14 overall record for Trent Barreta, 9-11 overall record for Chuck Taylor) SCU (2-3 tag team record in 2020, 16-7 overall record for Scorpio Sky, 16-6 overall record for Frankie Kazarian) The Lucha Bros (1-2 tag team record in 2020, 10-9 overall record for Pentagon Jr., 11-9 overall record for Fenix)

Originally Posted by Lucha Blog AAA is starting empty arena shows this Saturday at 8pm with plans of running them for the next four weeks. Will stream on YouTube and Facebook (oddly no Twitch.)

Originally Posted by PWI WWE has announced that they have officially postponed their annual meeting of shareholders, which was set to take place tomorrow. Expect other WWE announcements as the day continues.

Originally they announced they would hold a meeting but then immediately adjourn and announce a new date for it due to coronavirus issues.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE announced the following: WWE and Ad Council partner to launch national PSAs to raise awareness during COVID-19 pandemic As an extension of Ad Council’s ongoing efforts to ensure the American public is receiving critical and vetted information during the COVID-19 pandemic, the national nonprofit has partnered with WWE to launch a new suite of PSAs featuring WWE Champion Drew McIntyre, NXT Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair and WWE Superstar Kofi Kingston that stress the importance of practicing good hygiene during these unprecedented times.

Originally Posted by Fightful Will Ospreay sat down with Chris Van Vliet for an exclusive interview ... While on the topic of a potential working relationship between AEW and New Japan, Ospreay feels that it won’t happen because of NJPW’s partnership with Ring of Honor and thinks that AEW and New Japan don’t necessarily need each other. “I don’t know. I think the main reason is we’re kind of in bed with Ring of Honor right now and I think New Japan has a very big loyalty to the guys and once again, people need to remember New Japan at one point we’re going to file for bankruptcy, and they stayed loyal to the guys and they were able to bring it back up and then when Ring of Honor wasn’t doing its best and was on the down, New Japan was one… even there were times where I thought it was questionable maybe. Like I don’t really know, but New Japan have still been like, ‘Oh no. We’ll help out every now and again. We’ll still use some of your guys so like, put them on the show. Hopefully it’ll increase their value a little bit.’ Guys like Jeff Cobb for example. But I don’t know. I just think it’s… the way I always see it is do we really need each other? I think from fans’ perspective, there are a lot of dream matches. We could probably book like a nine-match dream card right now just sitting here, but I think it’s more or less of the — AEW, and I’m saying it like, I love everything [that] AEW’s doing. I think it’s fantastic. It’s fine, it’s doing everything great. New Japan is doing everything great. We don’t really need each other. There’s nothing that can benefit either group. I don’t really know. Maybe we could argue that New Japan on TNT would probably help out a little bit but I just think… there’s something there and for me personally, I want it to happen but I’m not like, ‘Ahh! It must happen.’” Ospreay and Van Vliet dove into Ospreay’s Twitter back and forth with Seth Rollins from 2019. Ospreay said that according to people that he knows that are close to Seth Rollins, Paul Heyman was the one who told Rollins to apologize for the tweet about making more money than Ospreay. “I mean, I heard rumors — once again, these are only rumors but I’ve heard rumors that Paul Heyman told him to apologize. Paul Heyman’s a big supporter of mine and once again, Paul Heyman is Paul Heyman. I heard that he told Seth to apologize. I don’t know if that’s true or not but like, there’s kind of rumors going around backstage and I’ve got guys who are friends with Seth Rollins in New Japan who have told me this and I’m like, I don’t know if that’s true but it sounds about right.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling ESPN has a feature story up on their site and Boxing promoter Bob Arum is the focus of the piece. With the recent news that the state of Florida has deemed WWE an “essential business” so they can continue to run live shows, Arum said he’ll be in contact with WWE about potentially running events at the Performance Center and has discussed the idea with Todd Duboef who’s the president of Top Rank. “It’s very, very interesting, and we’re going to be in touch with them. There’s a possibility to use their facility to maybe do events without a crowd. We’re very close with Vince [McMahon] and the WWE. So let’s see, but we’re still not talking before June.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling According to a report from WrestlingINC, MJF, The Young Bucks, PAC, Big Swole, Fenix, Pentagon Jr., Nyla Rose and “Hangman” Adam Page were not a part of the recent AEW TV tapings, thus will not be appearing on Dynamite over the next several weeks.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling The 2010 TNA Lockdown pay-per-view was covered by Eric Bischoff and Conrad Thompson on the latest 83 Weeks podcast. Bischoff shared his thoughts about the six-sided ring and what he thought of it when he first came into the company. Bischoff stated that the idea behind keeping the ring at the time was to attract viewers who were surfing through channels, hoping that the six-sided ring caught their eye. “Because it was f*cking stupid… it was stupid. Here was the logic that I heard and I’m not gonna name names, alright? But here’s the logic that I heard: ‘Yeah! But when people are flipping through the channels, they’re gonna see that six-sided ring and stop and go, ‘Hey, what’s that? Maybe we should watch it.’ That was the entire psychology and strategy behind the six-sided ring. You’re hoping to build an audience because people are clicking — first of all, people don’t click through channels anymore. You punch in your number, you scroll up and down. I mean, even in 2010, it was an absurd rationale and psychology if you will, or strategy to come up with a six-sided ring for no other reason than to capture an audience that may be surfing channels or as it was put, clicking through channels and stop because they were going to see something that looked odd to them. Think about that. That’s pretty f*cking stupid, right?”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Christian joined Booker T and Brad Gilmore on the Hall Of Fame podcast and during the Q&A portion of the show, Christian was asked if Edge’s WWE 24 documentary made him consider a return to the ring. Christian was clear about his concussion issues in the past and added that he’s medically disqualified and doesn’t know how he’d even go about getting cleared. “I mean, it’s one of those things, right? It’s a completely different injury. You know, I’m pretty content with all that I’ve accomplished in WWE. I pretty much accomplished everything I wanted to do except main event WrestleMania and let’s be honest, how many people actually get a chance to do that? I’m 46 years old, and I had some concussion issues. It’s just a matter of… I don’t see it happening. I’m medically disqualified. I’m just not sure how I would ever get cleared.”

Originally Posted by Fightful WrestleMania 37 could be in trouble. According to the Los Angeles Times, an internal Los Angeles Fire Department email went around that discussed placing restrictions on large gatherings in the state for up to a year. Kurt Angle Released By WWE Related Article Kurt Angle Released By WWE Mayor Eric Garcetti indicated in a conference call that “large gatherings such as concerts and sporting events may not be approved in the city for at least 1 year" according to the email. Garcetti spokesman Alex Comisar confirmed the mayor’s comments to the Times, saying, “The mayor was generally referencing studies of current and historical data and best practices for safely reopening our economy." There is no timeline for Los Angeles to resume hosting large scale events. WrestleMania 37 is scheduled to take place on March 28, 2021 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Construction has continued on SoFi Stadium, though work has been altered due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is unknown at this time if WrestleMania 37 will be affected.

Originally Posted by Fightful Before going on a hiatus for the foreseeable future, AEW taped months of content in Florida and Georgia. The tapings took place on a closed set at Daily's Place (Florida) and the Nightmare Factory (Georgia) before AEW suspended live operations. "When we first started, Brandi was adamant that we have a medical team. I rarely swing by the trainer's room but we also have a physio team. All the perks of a high-end wrestling company. She picked out Doc Sampson, who is famous for saving Jerry Lawler's life after his heart attack. He does not take shit from anybody. He set in a really rigorous amount of guidelines and everyone was able to follow them. You're quarantined in a hotel so we can keep the numbers under ten at the actual arena and then you're sanitizing a car steering wheel, the ropes are being sanitized, you're getting your temperature checked, you're getting quarantine questions a page long. You had to limit the people who are older individuals or people with immune illnesses of some kind, they can't be present because we don't want to put them in any risk, so we're doing interviews remotely. It's been an extreme challenge, but I wanted to be able to answer all challenges. Certain people really stepped up. Tony Khan, more than anybody," he said.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Next week’s episode of Dark Side of the Ring on VICE will focus in on the assassination of Dino Bravo and below is the trailer for the forthcoming episode:

TPWW Frontpage:

• Florida Governor Discusses WWE Being an “Essential Service,” Responds to Criticism
• Ratings: Dark Side of the Ring, WWE Backstage, WWE on FS1, Total Bellas
• WWE Releases Rusev, Angle, Rowan, Lio Rush, EC3, Anderson, Gallows, Maverick, Slater, Kanellis, More (Live Updates)
• WWE Furloughs Nine Producers, Including Lance Storm, Shane Helms, Finlay, More
• WWE Announces Upcoming Talent Cuts and Employee Furloughs
• Donald Trump Names Vince McMahon to a Council to Advise on Re-Opening the Economy

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer For the second straight week, NXT beat out AEW Dynamite in terms of total viewers but lost in the 18-49 demo. NXT averaged 692,000 viewers on the USA Network on Wednesday night, which was down 1,000 viewers from last week. The show fell to 58th in the 18-49 demo on cable with a 0.17 rating, down 10.5 percent. It's the fourth straight week the show has missed the top 50 in the 18-49 rankings for the night. Over on TNT, Dynamite averaged 683,000 viewers, down one percent from the previous week. Dynamite also fell in 18-49 to a 0.25 rating, which was down three percent from last week. The show finished 29th overall on cable in that demo. Factoring out the news programming that dominated the rankings, AEW would've finished 10th in the 18-49 demo and NXT would have finished 17th. The total Wednesday audience of 1.375 million viewers was down one percent from last week and was the second lowest overall total since both shows started airing in October.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling This week’s viewership ties Dynamite’s second-lowest since their launch with the lowest being 663,000 from Thanksgiving Eve last November ... AEW did a 0.25 in the 18-49 compared to NXT’s 0.17. AEW was down slightly in the demo from last week. There were moderate fluctuations for AEW among the key demos with females 18-49 down 11% while adults 18-34 increased 15% and men 12-34 were up 21%. Because NXT did not finish among the top fifty cable programs, we do not have a breakdown of their main demographics.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling WWE announced the adjournment of their annual stockholders meeting and below is the official press release concerning the news: STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– WWE today announced the adjournment of its annual meeting until May 14, 2020. Such date was chosen in order to conform with the Delaware General Corporation law relating to adjournments, however, as that date remains within the effective period of Governor Lamont’s stay at home/stay safe executive order for the State of Connecticut, it is extremely likely that the May meeting will again be adjourned to a later date. The Company will keep its stockholders apprised of all updates relating to the annual meeting as they become available. WWE also declared their quarterly dividend. STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– WWE (NYSE: WWE) announced that its Board of Directors today declared the Company’s regular quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share for all Class A and B shares of common stock. The record date for the dividend will be June 15, 2020 and the payment date will be June 25, 2020.

Originally Posted by PWI Vince McMahon tweeted: Saddened to learn of the passing of my friend and WWE’s first employee, WWE Hall of Famer Howard Finkel. The grandest moments in sports-entertainment history were made all the grander thanks to Howard’s iconic voice. pic.twitter.com/aAMY2XaHsm — Vince McMahon (@VinceMcMahon) April 16, 2020

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Shane “Hurricane” Helms joined Bully Ray and David LaGreca on Busted Open Radio just one day after he was furloughed from WWE. Helms did clarify that the company told him there may be an opportunity to return once the pandemic slows down but he’s waiting until it actually happens. Helms also revealed that he was the one who pitched the idea of the ‘Winner Take All’ stipulation for the main event of WrestleMania 35 between Charlotte Flair, Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey. “I believe there is and they told me there was [a possibility] so, we’ll just have to see until it actually happens. That’s my hope and I did some good things with them while I was there. The whole ‘Winner Take All’ at WrestleMania when the women main-evented, that was my idea. So I had some good stuff that I was doing there, but we’ll see. I’m personally concerned that this whole thing lasts a lot longer than what we’re being led to believe, as far as the whole ticket-paying audience being allowed back in buildings, stuff like that.” Another producer that was furloughed from the company was Billy Kidman. Helms revealed what exactly Kidman’s role was in the company and how important Billy was to the smoothness of the WWE product for their live TV shows. “So we got a guy that times the shows. Now basically, segments are given a certain amount of times. Like segment one is gonna open the show. It’s gonna have a certain amount of time. You got a crossover segment which is gonna happen at the end of the first hour going into the second hour. So anyway, say you and I have a match. Me against Bubba Ray. It’s gonna be segment four or five. Maybe segment four is gonna be five minutes and segment five is gonna be seven minutes, and that’s what we know we’re gonna have to do. Billy Kidman is kinda one of the ones who helps assign those minutes along with creative. He has to factor in commercial breaks, but then what happens is, sometimes segment one goes long. We had that recently. I believe it was the Randy Orton and Edge segment when Edge first came back. Went super heavy, really good, so if you go heavy as long as it’s good, nobody really goes crazy. But now, what Billy Kidman would have to do is he would have to make up that time elsewhere. Another segment that went heavy recently — I can’t remember what it was but it went eight minutes in, and so now he’s got to find time to make up for that eight minute slot in the show so he’s constantly sitting there calculating what he can do. ‘This match in seg 12 might be seven minutes. Well now it’s gonna have six. We gotta make up some time.’ Stuff like that. He’s constantly over there figuring it out, and it’s a pressure cooker and Billy was fantastic at it. Brisco did it for years, Gerald Brisco and now the guy that Kidman was training, Jason Ayers, he’s really good at it too. But that’s one of the most difficult jobs there so I was super surprised that Kidman was on the list.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Muscle and Fitness released their sit-down interview with Roman Reigns that was conducted prior to WrestleMania 36. Reigns would reveal that he and his wife are going to be welcoming two new children into the world soon. “Three kids with two in the oven. So I’m looking to be a papa bear of five. Breaking news. We haven’t really shared that.”

That rules out Reigns returning any time soon and probably not until maybe by next year's Mania at the earliest going by current info regarding the coronavirus and potential vaccine.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Following the news of the many names within WWE that were released from the company or furloughed, Seth Rollins gave his thoughts on the situation on Instagram Live and his response was not well received on social media when he shared his displeasure about the comments that were directed to WWE about their handling of yesterday’s events. “It’s just a difficult day for all of us. My heart is broken for the guys and girls who I’m really close with that had it the worst today, and that goes for talent that you guys love on-screen but also everyone off-screen who may not get the social media fanfare that some of the talent is getting. But one thing I am seeing that is a little upsetting to me is all the negativity and hostility towards WWE. This is a difficult day for everyone, for all of us and I think if ever there was a moment for us to unify, for us to kind of band together and try to do the best we can to keep this business alive the best we know how, this is that moment, and I think pointing fingers or saying, ‘You should’ve done this, you should’ve done that’ is… I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel like the time or the place for it. I think this is a day for compassion and for empathy and for understanding and to try to support each other. You know, to pick each other up and that’s for everybody. That’s not just for the guys and girls that [were] let go but, for all of us who are fortunate enough at this moment to still be able to have a position where we can collect a paycheck and we can support those who love us and those around us. I think that we have to take it upon ourselves to work harder to make sure that there’s a place for all those who again, had it the worst today, to come back to. I think as a planet, we can rally around the idea that this is only temporary, and that those who have lost their positions and who are struggling to figure out what to do next.”

Guess Rollins didn't want Strowman taking the crown this year for most tone deaf comments by a WWE wrestler.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling AEW Co-Executive Vice President Cody Rhodes wrote a detailed message about Zack Ryder on Instagram and shared how proud he is of Zack and that he believes in him. “I’d like to take a moment to say how proud I am to be a friend of @zryder85 – In a world of weekend warriors and “play wrestlers”, this dude exudes passion and drive for pro-wrestling like no other. Through 14 years to see him CONSISTENTLY try to better himself (whether that be his in-ring work, or watching him physically mold himself and his body into such a specimen DRUG FREE with hard work and will). I have a little rule, and that’s that if you’ve ever “gotten over” in wrestling…you can always do so again. That rule being fully applicable to Matt now. At 34 years young, his best wrestling days are ahead of him. Cheers to a great start and 14 years of unrelenting blood, sweat, and tears. Future endeavors are limitless when you actually endeavor. I chose this picture because it was one of my last days at WWE, watching 80,000+ people applaud as Matt won gold was an eruption not only live in the arena but in the locker room as well. Hearing Dolph coordinate for his father to come over the rails(meanwhile I was ass deep into a broken ladder and stuck but had the best seat in the house) and seeing father/son embrace, I thought I’d be jealous or bitter, but I was truly happy and proud for one of my peers. Congratulations my friend, and good luck!”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Dolph Ziggler purchased over $200 in merchandise to support independent wrestler Christian Kobain.

Link: https://twitter.com/RealKobain/statu...940028933?s=20

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Former WWE writer Kazeem Famuyide welcomed Lio Rush onto his ‘Say Less With Kaz’ podcast prior to the announcement of Rush’s release from WWE. During their conversation, Lio recalled one of his strangest interactions with WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and it occurred when Bobby Lashley was starting to do the butt pose on WWE TV. “Aw man, I think this was one of the first times where I had an actual long conversation with Vince, and it was by far the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had my life, and he described all of the poses, he described everything that he wanted from the biceps, to the chest curls, to just everything that I had no idea about. Me and Bobby [Lashley] had no idea what these poses were and then he said, ‘At the end of Bobby doing the side chest, the lat spread, I want him to bend over, face the crowd and you comment on his gluteus maximus,’ and I’m like, ‘Wha…’ My mind was gonna explode. I was like, ‘What is happening right now?’ And you hear about these stories about Vince on these podcasts, about these meetings and Vince reenacting what exactly he wants done. I will never forget me and Bobby just looking at each other being so confused and like, ‘What do you mean you want him to comment?’ And I’ll never forget — Vince stood up, got from behind his desk, stood in front of me and Bobby, bent over and tapped his ass and said, ‘That’s what I want you to do.’”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Matt Cardona, the former Zack Ryder currently has the top selling shirt on Pro Wrestling Tees.

Link: https://twitter.com/TheMattCardona/s...112546308?s=20

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Karl Anderson tweeted out a teaser about him possibly returning to Japan and he also changed his Twitter handle to @MachineGunKA.

Link: https://twitter.com/MachineGunKA/sta...044973573?s=20

Originally Posted by PWI Today was a rough day for WWE staff for a number of reasons. One, obviously was the passing of Howard Finkel, but there was also the fallout of yesterday's cutbacks as staff came over the shock of the day. Today, they were acclimating themselves to the new normal of so much of the company being on furlough or let go. One person felt at least 40% of the company was gone today vs. yesterday and I've had four different people mention having some form of "survivor's guilt" over friends and co-workers being gone while they remained. It was a rough day, especially since those remaining have far more on their plate than usual going forward and now have less manpower to get the work done. Cuts were across the board in every division. We are told that the live events division was especially hit hard since there aren't any events currently and the digital area of the company also suffered deep cuts as well. Those who were furloughed were told the company hoped to have them back by July and that the company would cover their benefits during this time. There are, obviously, a lot of people wondering if and when they will return to WWE. The released WWE main roster talents would have the traditional 90-day no compete, which would make them available for other promotions around 7/15.

Originally Posted by Fightful WWE employees who were furloughed this week could be coming back in a few months. According to a report from Wrestling Inc., employees who were furloughed did get an information packet that explained why they were furloughed in the first place. The packet reportedly said those people were furloughed due to the "current level of work available as a result of COVID-19." The pandemic was referred to "an unforeseen circumstance, akin to a natural disaster." Although people were furloughed on April 15, they will remain on WWE's payroll until April 18 when the furlough officially begins. According to the report, the current end date is July 1, but that date is subject to be changed "given the current situation and ongoing uncertainties." The packet does not have a definitive end date but noted that the furlough period is expected to last less than six months. WWE added that it plans to keep all the employees that were going affected by this decision. Despite this, layoffs could still happen. In addition, WWE will also be covering health insurance contributions during the furlough period for employees enrolled in the WWE health plan and those employees will still retain their seniority within the company. Wrestling Inc. also reported that WWE said furloughed employees will not be receiving a paycheck, however they may be eligible for unemployment benefits as well as the Federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

Originally Posted by Fightful Kyle O'Reilly's absence from NXT explained. According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Kyle O'Reilly missed Wednesday's NXT as he's diabetic and is a higher risk for the coronavirus ... O'Reilly hasn't wrestled since the March 11 episode NXT, which was the last episode of WWE television with a live audience. It is unknown if he will appear live at the Performance Center during the pandemic.

TPWW Frontpage:

• A New Trademark From The Revival May Reveal Their New Team Name
• WWE Release Updates: Updated List, More NXT Releases Expected, WWE PC Coaches Released
• Killer Kross’s Name Apparently Changed to “Karrion Kross”
• Legendary WWE Ring Announcer Howard Finkel Passes Away at Age 69

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

An absolutely crazy week saw Vince McMahon fold the XFL, have the Governor of Florida overrule local officials to be able to run multiple shows a week in the state, get, along with Dana White, to be mentioned by President Trump as one of the people he’d talk with about reopening the economy, and then made massive talent and office cuts with the expectation of a long economic downturn. With its $500 million of reserve cash available, broken down as $90.45 million in straight cash on hand, $160.03 million in short term investments that can be used, and another $250 million available instantly in debt capacity, McMahon was the first promoter in combat sports to make cuts, while other companies have avoided doing so even though all others are losing money, although UFC will be back to making money as soon as they start running shows again.

On 4/9, Linda McMahon announced that her Super PAC looking to re-elect Donald Trump would spend $11 million in Orlando, and $7.5 million in Tampa. Later that day Gov, DeSantis issued an order that gave not just WWE, but any sport that was going to be broadcast on national television, freedom to run in Florida as an essential business, as long as there were no spectators in attendance. This came just days after the Association of Ringside Professionals had said that no shows should take place due to a number of risks. When asked how WWE possibly fit into the description of an essential service, DeSantis said that such events were crucial to the Florida economy. Of course that makes no sense at all. Empty arena sports have virtually no economic impact on the economy. Aside from rent money for the venue, which is not that significant, the usual economic impact, taxes on ticket money and souvenirs, and impact on restaurants in the area or hotels for travelers that you do get from major sports events are no longer applicable for shows with no fans in attendance. Florida does get tax money from tickets to boxing and MMA events, but they don’t even get that from pro wrestling, and there is no ticket money to tax for anyone right now ... The order didn’t include even any compliances to social distancing as the mental health care workers had, or limit the size of gatherings. Basically they are free to as they please so long as the event is broadcast on national television. DeSantis became a media laughing stock when this came out, largely due to categorizing WWE events as essential services, and then it became more ugly when reporters tied the Linda McMahon money spent coming the day of the order. Of course, DeSantis denied one had nothing to do with the other.

It is certainly expected that Tampa will get WrestleMania in 2022, and they also wanted to make sure the state was okay for major league baseball in the event the league goes through with the proposal to do months if not the entire season in Florida and Arizona.

Sean Sapp got ahold of a memo to talent from last week from Paul Levesque, which stated, “We have just been notified that (name not reported but talent was told the name) was diagnosed with COVID-19 . WWE doctors spoke with (the infected individual) this morning and reported last had contact with anyone at WWE on March 26 at the Performance Center. As you know (he infected individual) is not an in-ring performer and we believe this matter is low-risk to you per the following chronology" ... The memo continued that “Those of you who were potentially exposed would be cleared for travel by the evening of Thursday, April 9 at the latest, since the last possible exposure to any WWE talent personnel should have been at least 14 days prior.” The WWE then released a statement which had a notable contradiction. The Levesque memo lists that people who could have been exposed if they had showed no symptoms should be fine to travel to television. The person infected was a member of the broadcast team and was at times in close quarters with several people on the roster during the filming of WrestleMania ... While not stated, the person in question has not returned to on-air work at press time ... At first the belief was that if somebody did test positive in WWE, that everyone in wrestling in the U.S. would shut down because of the reaction to continuing. If it was in AEW, the belief is they would shut down but WWE would continue. As it turned out, it was in WWE, nobody batted an eye, and WWE is now taping three days per week.

WWE made massive cuts across every division, not just limited to on-air performers. In particular, the live event division was gutted since there will likely be no live events for some time to come. But writers and office workers were cutback heavily, and in many cases age was a factor, notably the surprise cutting of referee Mike Chioda, who had been in that role for 31 years, the longest lasting referee in the company since its national expansion, who is 53 in a company that wants younger faces on the screen ... For NXT, all the released names aren’t known. And unlike the main roster, the belief is that there are more to come. We’re told everyone who isn’t featured heavily on NXT television is sweating on this. The NXT talent cut will only be on 30 day non-competes. The only confirmed names at press time are Deonna Purrazzo, Aleksander Jaksic, M.J. Jenkins, Dan Matha, ring announcer Jon Loquasto and interviewer Kat Marino aka Alyssa Marino.

WWE is expected to take him about $73 million per month if they take in $0 in house show tickets (which will be the case), merchandise (which will generate some money), licensing (which will generate some money), digital (which will generate some money), advertising, and any other stream besides television revenue and network subscriptions. Even if every category brings in no money for the remainder of 2020, WWE will gross about $900 million, the largest number in company history. We heard from two people with ownership interest in major sports this past week. One noted that their franchise, which would have been profitable, isn’t going to be, who could sympathize with McMahon as a publicly traded company. But he noted the timing of doing the cuts looks the worst. It was noted that as an owner of a non-public company, even though it is not profitable, he can make calls and at this point has no let anyone go. That isn’t to say he won’t, because the nature of a sports franchise is there will be talent turnover. It was noted that before New Japan and AEW became actual threats, WWE would make cuts, not this severe, but cuts, every year or two. It was also noted that the salary cuts of the talent and producer, which looks to be about $8.4 million per year, will not hurt the company from a product standpoint as most were not even used much aside from Gallows & Anderson, and to a degree Rusev, none were key players at any time recently ... Essentially the choice was short-term stock price and an attempt to have record-breaking profits over workers. And the reality is, under normal circumstances, that’s just business. And for some companies, it still is ... The cuts were made in all facets of business in an attempt to save $4 million per month. Between the wrestlers cuts and the agents, the monthly savings look to be north of $700,000. But there were cuts in all departments, and the executives and board members all took salary cuts as well. Lots of expenses were cut and expenses to build a new company headquarters in Stamford were delayed for at least six months. Part of the reason to build a new headquarters was to house more employees as the company was planning to expand with all the new revenue coming in. Due to the economic changes, nobody is expanding and thus they don’t need the new building and it probably won’t be the time to make those expansions and new additions for some time. The new headquarters was to house an increasing number of people, but with the job head count down, they don’t need a larger headquarters. At press time, the cuts led to a stock rise to $39.67 per share, giving the company a $3.067 billion market value. After the cuts were made, it was the first time in several weeks the value of the company has broken the $3 billion threshold. The company has its quarterly conference call on 4/23. The belief by many is the cuts were made this week to guard against a drop in some form based on information that won’t be taken positive when the financials come out.

AEW officially announced that its next show, Double or Nothing, will take place as a PPV on 5/23 at 8 p.m. Eastern, but would not take place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. This was expected since Nevada had shut down entertainment events through the end of May. That also includes the scheduled 5/27 TV show in the same arena. No new location was announced, but given Florida being opened up, they can now go pretty much anywhere in the state and run. They would also be doing another set of television tapings if not going back to weekly depending on the state of things at the time. Tony Khan said that he wasn’t sure the return would be in Florida, as he said by that time there will be few options and said that with television taken care of until the PPV, they don’t have to figure things out immediately. We don’t know how the situation will be in mid-May regarding travel and disease control, and whether they would be able to bring in a full crew or use a more limited crew like they did the last set of television tapings. They had only used 29 percent of their roster for the last set of tapings, concentrating on the guys from Florida and Georgia, a few from Texas and others who stayed down. For a PPV show, I’d think they would try and bring all the top guys in. Whether that would include people like Jim Ross or some of the older talent is likely a decision that won’t be made until closer to the date. Running a PPV off television with a limited crew and doing an empty arena show at a PPV price point is tough. The one positive is that they can shoot angles as far as interviews and vignettes with the talent not on television. There is a contract with the PPV providers for quarterly shows, and they do want the tradition of Memorial Day Saturday (but that tradition was to include being in Las Vegas). But it still feels that it’s going to be a tough sell and hard to put on a PPV caliber show with no fans with PPV pricing ... The question is if it would be better to move off this date and maybe do August, September and November, or even September, October and November, as perhaps by then there would be shows with crowds. But the problem is the uncertainty aspect. But I wouldn’t want to lock a date today and would rather wait until there’s a better sign of the future.

The 4/8 AEW vs. NXT battle, which ended up with the shows 400 people apart in NXT’s favor in total viewers, although AEW still won 18-49 solidly, did teach us a few lessons regarding overdoing gimmicks and long empty arena matches ... The 4/8 difference was so small that it was due to NXT’s better lead-in as NCIS before NXT is doing around 1 million viewers ... If you’re looking for the overall Gargano vs. Ciampa performance, it opened with solid growth with the audience going from 636,000 to 696,000. Without a doubt the match itself was the reason NXT was up overall 19.5 percent from the week before for the show at a time when generally everything is in a decline. However the match itself taught us another lesson. It declined in every quarter and only won one of the four quarters, which would be from about the 10-25 minute mark, and also came with AEW doing hype for Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager, a Matt Hardy interview and a Brodie Lee quick squash. It lost 56,000 viewers from the first to the fourth quarter, but only 4,000 in 18-34 and 5,000 in 35-49. So while not showing growth, as it should have, at best it was a slight negative in 18-49 but obviously it must have been a bigger negative older and younger, likely older since half the NXT audience is usually over the age of 53. The issue here is again, going so long. It was also the second straight week that the AEW main event lost viewers at the end because of being a 20 minute plus match, which was not a regular thing previously, and it was with Cody, who aside from Chris Jericho, has been the company’s biggest ratings mover. Even a women’s ladder match with title implications on NXT lost viewers. Ladder matches due to their uniqueness usually do well on television, but another aspect of both the ladder match and the Gargano-Ciampa is that NXT is a hardcore show and the oldest skewing show. So it’s an older audience, but probably an audience that did watch WrestleMania. They had just seen a never-ending street fight and had just seen a ladder match a few days earlier ... In particular, at 9:29 (the peak, so people were into the match for more than 20 minutes) there was a big NXT drop, and a second one at 9:51. They never came close again to the 9:29 level so about 20 minutes was the sweet spot for that match. The other question which was how people would take the Kenny Omega & Michael Nakazawa vs. Best Friends DDT style match, since that match went over two quarters we can see that it was a growth match and in fact, the ending nearly hit the high point of the show for AEW ... As far as a peaks, the only time AEW broke 800,000 was late in the Kenny Omega & Michael Nakazawa vs. Best Friends, which was also the match that got the most criticism. The main event peaked at nearly 800,000 a few minutes into the Cody vs. Shawn Spears match. But that match lost a lot of steam during the commercial breaks and never fully got it back. Gargano-Ciampa, on the other station, nearly hit 800,000 at 9:29, but fell hard and was below 700,000 the entire last quarter.

In the first quarter, AEW had 741,000 viewers, 100,000 in 18-34 and 253,000 in 35-49 with a Jake Roberts interview, a Lance Archer squash and the beginning of Hikaru Shida vs. Britt Baker. NXT had 842,000 viewers, 99,000 in 18-34 and 182,000 in 35-49 with the women’s ladder match with Chelsea Green, Io Shirai, Dakota Kai, Tegan Nox, Candice LeRae and Mia Yim ... In the second quarter, AEW lost 40,000 viewers overall, 14,000 in 18-34 and 18,000 in 35-49 with Baker vs. Shida and a backstage skit with Kenny Omega, Michael Nakazawa, Best Friends and Orange Cassidy. NXT lost 100,000 viewers, 18,000 in 18-34 but stayed even in 35-49 with the ending of the ladder match. In the third quarter, AEW went ahead 665,000 to 664,000, so really a dead heat. AEW lost 36,000 viewers, but gained 13,000 in 18-34 and lost 1,000 in 35-49 with the top five rankings and promotional work for the Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager match next week. NXT lost 78,000 viewers, including 6,000 in 18-34 and 18,000 in 35-49 with Finn Balor vs. Alexander Wolfe and a Balor promo. In the fourth quarter, AEW gained 36,000 viewers, but lost 3,000 in 18-49 and gained 5,000 in 35-49. That had a package for the Cody vs. Shawn Spears match and the beginning of Kenny Omega & Michael Nakazawa vs. Trent & Chuck Taylor. NXT lost 28,000 viewers, including 14,000 in 18-34 and 5,000 in 35-49 with Rinku & Saurav vs. Matt Martel & Chase Parker. In the fifth quarter, AEW gained 37,000 viewers including 6,000 in 18-34 and 25,000 in 35-49 with Omega & Nakazawa vs. Best Friends. NXT gained 60,000 viewers including 25,000 in 18-34 and lost 7,000 in 35-49 for Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley promos and the beginning of Tommaso Ciampa vs. Johnny Gargano. In the sixth quarter AEW lost 74,000 viewers including 20,000 in 18-34 and 18,000 in 35-49 with more build for Moxley vs. Hager, a Matt Hardy interview and a Brodie Lee squash. NXT lost 22,000 viewers including 7,000 in 18-34 but gained 6,000 in 35-49 for more of Gargano vs Ciampa. In the seventh quarter, AEW gained 16,000 viewers but lost 8,000 n 18-34 and 9,000 in 35-49 for the first half of Cody vs. Spears. NXT continued with Gargano vs. Ciampa and lost 25,000 viewers, including losing 4,000 in 18-34 and losing 3,000 in 35-49. The final quarter saw AEW lost 30,000 viewers, 4,000 in 18-34 and 5,000 in 35-49 for the ending of Cody vs. Spears NXT lost 9,000 viewers but gained 7,000 in 18-34 and lost 8,000 in 35-49 for the ending of Gargano vs. Ciampa. AEW won five of eight quarters in total viewers and all eight in the key demo. In 18-34, the last 30 minutes saw NXT win in 18-34 but lost in 35-49. Actual final quarter numbers were 650,000 for AEW with 70,000 in 18-34 and 232,000 in 35-49. NXT had 640,000 viewers with 82,000 in 18-34 and 147,000 in 35-49

NXT beat AEW in total viewers by a 692,000 to 683,000 margin on 4/15, while in 18-49, NXT was No. 27 at 0.25 and NXT was No. 58 at 0.17. As compared to last week, NXT was down 0.1 percent in viewers and 10.5 percent in 18-49. AEW was down 1.3 percent in viewers and 3.8 percent in 18-49. Unlike last week where that should have been expected, AEW had built up the Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager title match for a few weeks so both NXT’s staying the same with less of note built up while AEW’s lack of gain were both surprises. Next week, since NXT promoted more for next week, plus their lead-in edge, probably favors them for total viewers but the difference in 18-49 is still pretty substantial. AEW is hurt more because part of its edge was the rabid live arena fans and that isn’t going to be the case. In addition, NXT has its full roster available and AEW won’t for a while. NXT is live and AEW isn’t, but I don’t think that’s as much of a factor since AEW spoilers haven’t gotten out anywhere since, like WWE, both were taped on a closed set.

Yet another company having problems right now is Ticketmaster, as well as Stubhub, regarding refunds for tickets purchase. Ticketmaster has changed its policy from customers being able to get refunds if an event is postponed, rescheduled or canceled, now it only lists canceled, although it is more following the policy of the promoter. If WWE or AEW agrees to refund, Ticketmaster will do so, but you will likely lose the service charge. But it will not do so if the promoter of an event reschedules and doesn’t offer refunds. People have noted to us that most of the smaller promotions, including WrestleCon which took a huge financial hit, have refunded money for WrestleMania weekend. Evolve hadn’t fully done so as of last word, but they also told customers of that issue. and promised to do so. Many had complained WrestleMania tickets themselves haven’t been refunded yet while every other promotion but Evolve had done so, but they were starting to be refunded on 4/14. Stubhub said that due to the large number of canceled events, that handling all the refunds at this point it isn’t yet manageable. More than 20,000 live entertainment events have been canceled

Kerry Morton, 19, the son of Ricky Morton, is getting into pro wrestling. He was an actor in local musical theaters but also won the Tennessee state high school championship at 138 pounds and trained under his father, Tom Prichard, Robert Gibson, Chase Owens (who was also a state champion high school wrestler) and Bobby Eaton. He was ready to put himself on the map when independent wrestling got shut down. He said he’s also trying to learn to be a producer in wrestling

Besides the contracted talent, ROH has been paying non-contracted talent, whether it be wrestlers booked on a per show basis, ring crew, camera men, referees, etc. that were originally booked for the shows canceled thus far and through May what they would have been paid had those shows taken place.

Mike Jackson, the famed Georgia Championship Wrestling enhancement guy from the 70s and 80s, appeared on the 4/14 television show losing to Johnny Swinger. The story was that Swinger was going to face a Young Buck named M. Jackson, and kept talking like nobody believed he could pull that off. He cut his promo about the Young Bucks, but then the screen read Mike Jackson. This was taped in Atlanta, where he was a regular on TV, best known for being the small guy who made the then-green Road Warriors look both gigantic and impressive in 1983 when they were breaking in, but that was so long ago it’s doubtful many in the crowd would have known ... Once the people saw him do some athletic things, of course they got behind him He did the Undertaker rope walk around most of the ring, got up and down great, hit a tope. Really he was amazing for his age before Swinger pinned him using the ropes. I believe it was his first time on national television since 1991.

DVR viewership of Raw has been declining of late. The last regular show with a crowd did 425,000. The first two empty arena shows did 353,000 (on a show that would be expected to do significantly more) and 319,000 Coming off the rumors of Peacock not being interested in purchasing rights to the WWE PPV shows, NBC Universal had a deck of slides to promote Peacock talking about the rich history of the various NBC U channels and the huge libraries of content they have. The USA Network was well represented throughout and there was early plans talked of to build off the USA Network’s original IP. There was not a single mention of WWE, which those who saw it told us came across as a staggering omission

Samoa Joe is still not cleared from his latest concussion

A lot of NXT guys have been losing on Raw but there are still rules in place. Theory was moved from NXT to Raw because somebody was needed in the spot and he did well enough that he’s now there as a regular. Belair was a long-term plan to come up after Mania. Guys like Tehuti Miles or Cal Bloom on Smackdown are not on NXT television so it’s okay to use them as enhancement. Guys like Tozawa or Lorcan are considered 205 Live guys who also appear on NXT, so they are okay as well. The basic theory as espoused is that NXT is considered the front line of defense against AEW. They can work out a plan for talent needed on the main roster but NXT has to be positioned as something other than developmental or a Raw/Smackdown feeder system right now

Smeat note:

• Taking a break next week from doing sheets reports lasting until Friday since that is when the next Newsletter gets released.

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition)

Just one week after WWE announced going live at the Performance Center every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Vince McMahon changed his mind again ... The continuing of tapings became an issue on 4/21 at the Orange County, FL (where both the Performance Center and Full Sail University are located in) when an employee of the company made a public comment on the subject and asked for the tapings to be shut down. “My employer, World Wrestling Entertainment, AKA WWE, is forcing me to work the TV tapings for its weekly shows despite stay at home orders. I am unable to speak out as I need this job, and I know I will be fired if I approach my higher-ups. Despite sanitary precautions, we cannot maintain social distancing and I have to touch other people. I request the government to shut down these tapings and enforce the stay at home order so my colleagues and I may follow the social distancing rules without fear of repercussion of losing our jobs." It should be noted that, like with AEW, people have been told they don’t have to work these tapings if they are uncomfortable. That said, the massive cuts also send a message. It is also notable that 29 percent of the talent on the AEW roster worked the most recent set of tapings. In WWE, other than Reigns, Kyle O’Reilly and the NXT announcing team, there is no word of anyone not working ... It also doesn’t help the perception from the talent when Lio Rush publicly stated that he was not going to work while the pandemic was going on and then just a short time later, he was fired. He was likely to be on the list anyway, since he was one of the talents who had publicly complained about money and those who had any point made comments perceived as negative were on the list of those let go. However, it does look bad from the outside. Jon Alba, a reporter for Sports 360 in the Tampa/Orlando area noted that “While there isn’t really a way to verify if the comment above was 100 percent a WWE employee given the nature of the complaint, it should be noted that there have been several within the company who have expressed concern, many privately, over the tapings continuing.” I can verify there were talents in the company who expressed concern, and others who recognize the risks and are concerned, but have said from a WWE standpoint they don’t think there is any kind of a solution that is good, including shutting down because of so many issues with that decision economically. But across the board, nobody can come up with any kind of a logical reason to be using Jerry Lawler at this time, given his age, previous heart attack, family history of heart problems and not adhering to any social distancing with him. At one point, when Lawler, the Street Profits, Byron Saxton and Tom Phillips were all together at the announce set, it was clear the social distancing precautions were not going to change how they did that aspect of the television show. There have also been Instagram posts from backstage showing social distancing was not being adhered to ... There is a belief that the state allowing WWE to continue running, as an essential business, also had to do with getting the 2022 WrestleMania in Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium, as was originally planned for this year.

There were a number of new WWE cuts this past week, with perhaps the biggest name being Kassius Ohno (Chris Spradlin). Perhaps the most surprising name of those cut was Kerwin Silfies, who had been the lead Director of WWE television programming dating back to around 1984. Silfies wasn’t with the WWE the entire period. Conrad Thompson mentioned Silfies name as being put on furlough as one of the surprising departures while on his podcast with Jim Ross. Silfies had left the company at one point and was brought back. Marty Miller has been the company’s main television director but Silfies still did shows ... Two other significant releases were Sabatino Piscitelli, better known as Tino Sabbatelli, and Taynara Conti ... In the decision on cuts, it was clear that those who had fought management on contract issues were cut, notably her, Mike Bennett and Luke Gallows & Karl Anderson (who were never unprofessional but turned down a number of big money offers until the money got so big they couldn’t turn it town). No doubt, even though the company agreed to the deal for five years (as they did with Bennett, who had made noises of wanting to leave) the size of their salary likely worked against them. Among other releases this past week included Josiah Williams, an on-air digital host who appeared a few times on NXT television ... Most of those cut were stars being trained and groomed to be local stars for NXT outposts in foreign markets. Expanding into new regions is no longer high on the current goals. But it is notable with all the emphasis on making Middle Eastern stars due to the Saudi Arabia deal that they cut three Middle Eastern wrestlers, which seems to tell a story about priorities changing ... Also cut was Andrea Listenberger, a member of the creative team whose main role the past few months was developing the Mandy Rose/Otis storyline, which was probably the best long-term storyline the company had.

Regarding the WWE Network, it’s too early to tell about the pandemic but the build to this year’s WrestleMania, with all the complaints, was about the same as last year, stronger early but weaker in the final week before Mania ... Regarding the hoped for deal, which could have been to sell the network itself to a larger streaming provider or just sell the PPVs, as noted, no deal was reached in time for WrestleMania, which was the goal ... The changes in tiers in the WWE Network and a free tier, originally to start already this year, is now targeted for the fourth quarter. My gut says there were no plans to rush the changes because it makes no sense to start something and then sell the content to another distributor, so the different tiers, the usage of the various independent libraries they’ve been teasing for years and such probably won’t happen until either late this year or after if they can sell streaming content to a higher paying provider. They noted when things get back to normal, or as close to normal as it gets, perhaps the situation will change. But the indication was that all talks right now are dead, since major media partners right now aren’t looking at adding a new major expense on a deal that at best won’t pay off financially for a long time. Numbers are down from last year due to a steady decline over the past two years, but first quarter growth was up very slightly. From December 31, 2019 to March 31, 2020, the WWE Network went from 996,000 U.S. subscribers to 1,082,500, and from 393,000 foreign subscribers to 412,100, meaning overall 1,389,000 to 1,494,600. The growth of 87,000 in the U.S. and 19,000 outside the U.S. compares with growth of 56,000 in the U.S. during the same months last year and 13,000 outside the U.S., or 106,000 to 69,000. Still, because they started from a lower point, subscribers on March 31, 2019 were down 7.6 percent from the same day last year in the U.S., and 3.1 percent outside the U.S. In addition, there were a lot more free subscribers, with 149,000 on 3/31 this year and only 46,000 last year ... However, from March 31 until the day after WrestleMania, that changed again. The WWE Network added 170,000 paid subscribers, but also had 187,000 new subscribers ordering for free during those days. This year, those numbers were 127,000 new subscribers paid, and 327,000 free ... On the day after WrestleMania, and usual high point of the year, there was an increase of 239,000 new paid subscribers from New Year’s Eve to the day after WrestleMania. This year that number ended up being 233,000, almost identical but a very slight overall decline. On the day after WrestleMania, there were 1,622,000 paid subscribers and 476,000 free subscribers for 2,098,000. That number last year was 1,767,000 paid and 233,000 free for 2,000,000. In 2018, it was 1,808,000 paid and 316,000 free for 2,124,000. Overall network revenue alone was down 7.8 percent in the first quarter of this year as compared to last year, while in the U.S the drop was 9.0 percent.

Regarding Saudi Arabia, McMahon noted there is an uncertainly regarding a second show this year. “They want to run another huge event,” he said. “We usually have two. They have the same constraints. We are not too sure we’ll get the okay to perform in November or December. They want us to. “ McMahon noted that if there is only one show this year, that both sides have agreed that it will tack on another event at the end of the current contract so while revenue will be down this year, it’ll be made up for in the future so the company won’t be out any money on the deal. He said they were still working on Middle East TV rights, which were the last major rights negotiations not completed.

A few more notes on Howard Finkel, who passed away on 4/16 at the age of 69. Tommy Dreamer, who visited Finkel in his assisted living center where he had been, said the Jerry Lawler report that Finkel suffered a stroke a few years ago at the time when nobody, even friends of his, could get any information on him, was inaccurate. In an interview on the Busted Open radio show, he said, “A lot of people said Howard had a stroke. Howard did not have a stroke. Howard had a rare genetic brain disease. His brain was shrinking and I hate that because the whole `Out Think the Fink’ and he was slowly losing his mind. He had stroke-like systems but he kept falling because of his brain. I didn't post pictures of us on social media. I took them all the time I would visit him, but Howard had such pride. He didn't want the people to know that he was sick. He didn't want people to feel sorry for him. He was literally just sitting there watching the Mets game until it was time to watch wrestling."

Smackdown on 4/17 did a 1.39 rating and 2,187,000 (1.30 viewer per home) viewers and a 0.6 in the 18-49 demo. The demo number was down 6.9 percent from last week, the rating was down 0.7 percent from last week and the total audience was down 5.6 percent. The 18-49 rating, which staying the same at 0.6, was an actual viewer drop from 823,000 last week to 766,000 this week. It was the lowest rating, demo rating and total audience for Smackdown on FOX, but no surprise since last week’s show had the benefit the first show after WrestleMania and wrestling numbers for the most part are down ... Last year on the same week, FOX averaged 3,043,000 viewers and a 0.6 in the demo, so they are even in the demo and down 28.1 percent in viewers.

So there was a weird situation on 4/20. Logan, who was cut a few days earlier, was booked in a few segments on Raw. The plan wasn’t to keep her employed, but the idea was that since they are still paying her for 90 more days, if there was a reason to use her, they would. Since the idea was that she was going to be back for a short while, her name was scripted into a few promos. And then the decision was made not to use her on the show, but they didn’t change the promos. I’ve got no idea if what was planned, which I believe was a segment where she’d be linked up with the Viking Raiders, has been dropped or may take place in the future. But even if she is on Raw next week, that doesn’t mean her firing was rescinded They are also doing an angle working the Drake Maverick firing into a storyline. Maverick cut a nearly tearful promo about losing his job and the idea is that he needed to prove to himself and WWE that he was good enough and the cruiserweight tournament was his last chance. Then he lost to Jake Atlas in the first tournament match. Since it’s round-robin, the keys are if he wins his next two he can advance, but he has to win his next match to do so. No matter what the storyline, he did need to lose the first match. It’s almost impossible to believe if they are doing a storyline where he has to win to save his job, that in the end, he doesn’t save his job. During this period that would be cruel. It’s also weird to shoot an angle that calls attention to the fact they fired a bunch of guys weeks into a pandemic. And the kicker to all this is that as of Wednesday, Maverick was still listed as being gone when the 90 days are up. Like with all the talent, they may use them because they are paying them for the next 90 days if they haven’t already made their downside money

Right now the Charlotte Flair vs. Io Shirai NXT women’s title match is not scheduled for Money in the Bank

For 4/22, AEW was No. 24 in 18-49, doing 731,000 viewers and an 0.25 in the key demo. NXT was No. 50 in 18-49, doing 665,000 viewers and a 0.18 in the demo. AEW’s total audience was up 7.0 percent from the prior week, but in the key demo, it was only up from 323,000 to 325,000, or basically identical. NXT was down 3.9 percent overall but in 18-49, they were up from 224,000 last week to 234,000 this week. Breaking 18-49 down, AEW had a 49,000 to 27,000 lead in Males 18-34, while NXT lead a 41,000 to 40,000 lead in Women 18-34. What is notable and unusual is that with 18-34, only 39.7 percent of the NXT viewers were men while for AEW, the number was 55.1 percent. Both are much lower than usual indicating 18-34 males watching other programming ... AEW did a 0.12 in 12-17 (up 9.1 percent from last week), 0.13 in 18-34 (down 13.3 percent), 0.37 in 35-49 (up 5.7 percent) and 0.30 in 50+ (up 7.1 percent). The audience was 60.9 percent male in 18-49 and 51.2 percent male in 12-17, so guys were down but women were much higher than usual by percentage. Because NXT was out of the top 50, we don’t have comparisons from last week, but the show did a 0.07 in 12-17, 0.10 in 18-34, 0.26 in 35-49 and 0.34 in 50+. The show did 59.4 percent male in 18-49 and 30.7 males in 12-17, so there has a reason that with women 12-34 the4 show was up and men 12-34 the NXT show was a disaster based on usual patterns.

Here are some more details on the 4/15 shows. NXT peaked in the first quarter coming off NCIS with 730,000 viewers for Finn Balor vs. Fabian Aichner. AEW peaked in the sixth quarter with 729,000 viewers for Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager. Moxley vs. Hager start-to-finish lost 47,000 viewers, but gained early overall, peaked in 18-49 from 9:30 to 9:45 and overall gained 23,000 in 18-49, however it dropped in the final quarter so it clearly went too long, while the tag title match in NXT gained in the final quarter, as it hadn’t gone nearly as long. AEW had a 323,000 to 224,000 edge in the 18-49 demo. AEW averaged 1.32 viewers per home, down from usual. NXT won five of eight quarters overall, the first four, partially from their edge in the lead-in, but their greatest lead was quarter two when AEW dropped badly. Most quarters were close and NXT also won the main event quarter overall ... * AEW opened with 703,000 viewers and 315,000 in 18-49 for a Jake Roberts promo and Lance Archer vs. Colt Cabana. NXT had 730,000 viewers and 253,000 in 18-49 for Balor vs. Aichner. In quarter two, AEW lost 65,000 viewers and 11,000 in 18-49 for the end of Archer vs. Cabana, a Britt Baker vignette, hype videos for Moxley vs. Hager and Baker vs. Cassandra Golden. NXT lost 30,000 viewers and 3,000 in 18-49 for the end of Balor vs. Aichner, a Velveteen Dream promo and an interview and video package with Charlotte Flair. In quarter three, AEW gained 23,000 viewers but lost 15,000 in 18-49 for the Inner Circle vignette and Sammy Guevara vs. Suge D. NXT lost 22,000 viewers and 13,000 in 18-49 for Aliyah vs. Xia Li and the beginning of Akira Tozawa vs. Isaiah Scott. While not a match and not an in-ring, this would be the first quarter since the start of AEW where Jericho has been featured and AEW lost the quarter in total viewers 678,000 to 661,000. In quarter four, AEW lost 8,000 viewers and 2,000 in 18-49 with the end of Guevara vs. Suge D, a Guevara promo and beginning of Kip Sabian vs. Chuck Taylor. NXT lost 22,000 viewers and 14,000 in 18-49 for the end of Tozawa vs. Scott, A Tozawa interview and another Dream interview. In quarter five, AEW gained 54,000 viewers and 41,000 in 18-49 for the res of Sabian vs. Taylor. NXT gained 23,000 viewers but lost 35,000 in 18-49 for Tegan Nox vs. Raquel Gonzalez and a Keith Lee vignette. In quarter six, AEW gained 22,000 viewers and 24,000 in 18-49 for Shawn Spears vs. Justin Law and mostly Moxley vs. Hager. NXT gained 24,000 viewers and 29,000 in 18-49 for Dexter Lumis vs. Tehuti Miles, an Adam Cole promo and the Dream/Balor angle. In quarter seven, AEW lost 19,000 viewers but gained 9,000 in 18-49 (peak of 18-49) for the second quarter of Moxley vs. Hager. NXT lost 29,000 viewers and 9,000 in 18-49 for he beginning of Matt Riddle & Timothy Thatcher vs. Roderick Strong & Bobby Fish for the tag titles. In quarter eight, there was a big turnaround as AEW lost 50,000 viewers and 10,000 in 18-49 for the end of Moxley vs. Hager. NXT gained 41,000 viewers and 35,000 in 18-49 for the end of Riddle & Thatcher vs. Strong & Fish.

Konnan did an interview this past week and listed Primo, Epico and Lio Rush as wrestlers he would be interested in bringing to AAA from the recent list of WWE cuts

If you see the name Zach Sammartino of Dartmouth in the NFL draft this week, he is related to Bruno Sammartino. The 6-foot-4 315 pound offensive lineman was first team Ivy League and comes from Pittsburgh. Bruno Sammartino was his great uncle

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer Not unexpectedly, since it's been the pattern, Raw once again set its all-time non-holiday low last night doing 1.82 million viewers, down from 1.84 million last week. The all-time record low was 1.78 million set on Christmas Eve of 2018. The bad news is the big third hour drop returned, as the contract signing with Drew McIntyre and Seth Rollins and a long United States title match with Andrade vs. Apollo Crews did 1.62 million viewers in hour three, the lowest number for an hour in 25 years. Also bad news is that the 18-49 number dropped from 0.56 last week to 0.51. Raw was down 16 percent from the same show last year, but that show did at the time record-low level numbers going against the NBA playoffs. Even so, the 18-49 drop from last year was 29 percent ... The three hours were: 8 p.m. 1.95 million viewers 9 p.m. 1.89 million viewers 10 p.m. 1.62 million viewers

Originally Posted by PWI As of 4/23, in what may be the first of many such filings, WWE officially made their first move to oppose Cody Runnel's registration of trademarks for "Slamboree" and "The Match Beyond." trademarks. WWE requested an extension to answer and were granted that through 7/22 to file an official opposition or to request another extension for those trademarks. Slamboree was a PPV created by Dusty Rhodes while working for World Championship Wrestling. The Match Beyond was a term created for the Wargrames match when it debuted in July 1987 for Jim Crockett Promotions. Rhodes was in charge of creative for JCP at the time. Turner Broadcasting purchased JCP, creating WCW. They sold WCW to the WWF (now WWE) in March 2001 with WWE acquiring their intellctual property. Cody has noted he filed trademarks on some of his father's creations that were sitting there, unused with The Match Beyond and Slamboree among them. Cody filed a trademark on his former WWE ring name "Cody Rhodes" last week, just 24 hours after WWE's trademark on the name expired.

Originally Posted by PWI Vice TV's Dark Side of the Ring will begin airing "extended" episodes of the series' current season this week ... The 5/5 Herb Abrams episode has been titled "Cocaine & Cowboy Boots - The Abrams Story" and features the following official synopsis - "One man's fanatical attempt to build a wrestling empire to rival Vince McMahon's goes tragically haywire as his ego and cocaine addiction kills his dream -- and him along with it." The Road Warriors episode has been officially titled "The Last Ride of the Road Warriors" and notes it will tell "The inside story of how wrestling's ultimate tag-team partnership is undone when one half of the powerhouse duo slides into alcohol and substance abuse." The Owen Hart episode that is slated to close the series' second season has been titled "The Final Days of Owen Hart." The official synopsis notes that his widow, Martha Hart will appear notin, "In 1999, Owen Hart fell 80 feet to his death in a stunt that went tragically wrong. Bravely reliving his final day, his widow Martha reveals the mistakes that took his life."

Originally Posted by Fightful Luke Gallows, via his Wrestlemerica promotion, filed for the trademark on 'Sex Ferguson' on April 22. Gallows used the Sex Ferguson gimmick on Colt Cabana's Wrestling Road Diaries and did a PG version of the character in Southpaw Regional Wrestling as Tex Ferguson.

Originally Posted by Observer Stephanie McMahon is among the new additions to Ad Council’s board of directors. She tweeted about the news: “Honored to be joining the @AdCouncil Board of Directors and serve alongside an incredible group of business leaders who endeavor to serve the American public with meaningful campaigns around important social causes.”

Originally Posted by Observer While speaking with NJPW’s website, IWGP Heavyweight and IWGP Intercontinental Champion Tetsuya Naito discussed only wanting to defend one title at a time: “If every defence I have is going to be for both titles, then what’s the point of having two titles? Why not unify them at that point? Maybe that’s a conversation that we have, but for the time being there are two titles, so why not use them both? I think it should be fine to defend one title belt at a time.”

Originally Posted by Observer Sports Illustrated interviewed Bronson Rechsteiner, the son of Rick Steiner, and asked if he would ever consider a career in pro wrestling: “I’m open to it. But I know wrestling will always be there for me. It’s always been my dream to carry the family’s legacy in professional sports, and I’m staying focused on taking football as far as I can.” Rechsteiner recently signed with the Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted free agent.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE's 6/27 return date at Madison Square Garden in New York City has been postponed. There is, as of yet, no new, rescheduled date. Saturday 6/27 was initially announced as a replacement date for ticketholders of the originally postponed 3/22 MSG event as it had already been planned as WWE's return date to the World's Most Famous Arena. The legendary NYC venue was shuttered on 3/12 as part of New York State and New York City each declaring a state of emergency to help combat the coronavirus, banning gatherings and events of 500 or more attendees. A statement released by MSG at the time noted, “We support Governor Cuomo’s decision and starting tomorrow night, our New York venues will only host events that adhere to the Governor’s very clear parameters. This is a fluid situation and we will be back with further details when available."

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Courtesy of Yahoo! Finance, class-action lawsuits have be filed against WWE by way of shareholders and below is a recap of the lawsuit: According to the filed complaint, during the class period, World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: Defendants perpetrated a fraudulent scheme which: (i) deceived the investing public regarding WWE’s business and prospects; (ii) artificially inflated the price of WWE Class A common stock; (iii) permitted certain senior executives of WWE to sell more than $282 million worth of their personally held shares at fraud inflated prices; and (iv) caused the public to purchase WWE Class A common stock at artificially inflated prices ... According to the filed complaint, (1) there was an oversupply in the hydraulic fracturing services market; (2) the Company’s pricing power was weak; (3) Liberty’s services were not increasing and its competition was not decreasing; and (4) as a result, Defendants’ statements about the Company’s business, operations, and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.

Link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/class...155000817.html

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the first episode of Ring of Honor’s ‘ROHStrong’ podcast, co-booker Marty Scurll joined the show. Marty was candid about many topics concerning Ring of Honor including the possibility of them working with All Elite Wrestling. “Yeah, I don’t see why not. It would have to be a matter of timing and a matter of, I spoke about [it] previously, just where it would benefit both companies but like I said, I have an amazing relationship with The Bucks especially. I still talk to them on a regular basis. I have a pretty good relationship with Tony Khan and I think both parties are definitely willing to work with each other. It’s just a matter of timing I guess. Like when it would be suitable to do so. So it’s definitely something I wouldn’t rule out for sure. I’m not saying anything will happen. I’m just saying I wouldn’t rule it out. There’s no reason why we wouldn’t. The timing needs to be correct. It needs to be a fitting situation for us to work together. I’d personally like to see it happen at some point.”

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling On the latest edition of New Day’s ‘Feel The Power’ podcast, Tyler Breeze joined the show and Breeze talked about the match that he and Fandango had against The Usos at the 2017 Backlash pay-per-view. In that match, Breeze changed characters and went from a janitor to an elderly woman. Initially, it was supposed to be a serious match for the SmackDown Tag Team Titles and Breeze told the story of how the match was converted into a comedic match. “So we start putting together this normal match, then all of sudden they’re like, ‘Hey, you’re getting called into the office.’ I’m like, ‘Okay.’ So we go in and all of a sudden, I’m told, ‘You dress up like other things right?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sometimes,’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, but like a girl, lady and whatever…’ I said, ‘Yeah, I could dress up like whatever,’ and he goes, ‘Do that tonight,’ and I was like, ‘Well how am I supposed to dress up like a couple things while I’m wrestling?’ And he’s like, ‘Well, figure it out’ and I went, ‘Okay’ and so Usos — everybody’s got this bewildered look on their face. We got like 15 minutes for this match on a pay-per-view, tag titles, so like what’s happening here? I don’t know how to make this work. So, Usos always laugh because they used to love working with us because they used to know I just come in and be like, ‘Hey guys. This, this, this, this, this’ and they just call me agent Breeze because I put the match together and they were like, ‘Cool, works for us’ and I’d go, ‘Awesome.’ So, they start laughing as we walk back to the locker room and I’m just sitting on the floor, and I have nothing in my head, and they’re just laughing at me and I go, ‘What’s so funny?’ And they said, ‘We just never seen you like this. Like you have no ideas,’ and I said, ‘How am I supposed to get changed in the middle of a ring? How am I supposed to change from outfit to outfit?’ So then, somebody said something about — I was like, ‘Okay, we gotta figure out what to do here.’ So I was like, ‘Well, I think I could do the janitor like an old lady. I think that should be enough.’ So I’m like, ‘Well, if I dress up like an old lady underneath, then I could roll under the ring and get the janitor stuff off and then be the old lady coming out.’ I said, ‘That’s really the only way I can do this.’”

Originally Posted by Fightful AEW World Champion Jon Moxley's recent appearance on WWE Backstage may have caused some problems for his wife Renee Young. Young, who is a host on the show, which airs on FS1, was surprised when Moxley made a very brief and unexpected cameo on the show in late March. During an interview with PWInsider's Mike Johnson, Moxley was asked about his cameo and if Young got heat for it. Moxley simply answered yes and wouldn't go into any further detail on the record. "Short answer is yes," Moxley said.

Wild card rules during the quarantine.

Moxley cameo on Backstage. pic.twitter.com/TybLOKp1vQ

— I'm Chris Kazama, ESPN. (@TheChrisKazama) March 27, 2020

TPWW Frontpage:

• Apollo Crews Pulled From Money in the Bank Ladder Match
• Cain Velasquez Released by WWE, Gerald Brisco Furloughed
• WWE: Heath Slater on Issues with His WWE Career, Kalisto Update, Australia Tour Postponed
• Jesse Ventura Considering a Run for President

[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets:

Originally Posted by Observer WWE is set to air its first-ever virtual roundtable on YouTube tomorrow morning. It was announced today that WWE's virtual roundtable series will kick off with an episode featuring the company's Scottish champions. It will premiere on YouTube at 10 a.m. Eastern time this Thursday (April 30). WWE Champion Drew McIntyre, Women's Tag Team Champion Nikki Cross, NXT UK Women's Champion Kay Lee Ray, and NXT UK Tag Team Champions Gallus (Mark Coffey & Wolfgang) are taking part in the roundtable. They will "discuss what it means to represent Scotland in both WWE and NXT UK, their personal and often entwined journeys to championship glory and what their concurrent reigns could mean for the future of Scotland and the United Kingdom as a whole." The virtual roundtable will be hosted by NXT UK's Andy Shepherd.

Link: https://twitter.com/WWEUK/status/1255497014009384965

Originally Posted by Observer This weekend's season premiere of Showtime's "Billions" will include an appearance by the Raw Women's Champion. During this morning's edition of WWE's The Bump, it was confirmed that Lynch will have a role in the drama series' season five premiere. The episode will air on Showtime at 9 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday (May 3).

Originally Posted by PWI Major League Wrestling ("MLW") today announced a new distribution partnership with iNDEMAND to distribute a slate of special events starting this May on pay-per-view via iNDEMAND. "iNDEMAND is a giant in the sports programming space and the perfect partner as the league continues to build its audience and distribution," said MLW CEO Court Bauer. Major League Wrestling will present three marquee events in the month of May, including: May 7th: MLW Battle Riot II. More info May 14th: MLW Saturday Night Super Fight. More info May 21st: MLW Opera Cup 2019. More info All events have a start time of 8:00 pm ET. Additional replays will be available all month.

Originally Posted by Post Wrestling Television viewership has invariably taken its toll on both WWE and AEW over the past seven weeks of empty arena shows. Raw is hovering at historic lows with this past Monday’s show featuring a third hour that was the least-watched hour in Raw’s modern history. In studying the live viewership data available for Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and AEW Dynamite, it’s been SmackDown that has held up best until the past two weeks. Over the past seven episodes of SmackDown, the show is only down 5.4% but that has been amplified over the last two weeks where SmackDown has hit its two lowest viewership figures since launching on Fox. If this trend continues, the show will catch up to the loss shown with the other programs. Over the seven weeks before the empty arena shows, Raw averaged 2,281,000 viewers (2,262,000 if you factor out the night after Royal Rumble) from January 29th until March 9th (which was the final episode in front of fans). Since the empty arena Raws began on March 16th, they have averaged 1,991,000 viewers, a decline of 13%. The first week inside an empty arena had the novelty factor and was strengthened by the re-airing of the men’s Royal Rumble match and averaged 2.335 million viewers. The decline began the week after and has hovered at the two million viewers, although Raw has fallen under that number the past two episodes. For SmackDown, they averaged 2,462,000 viewers on Fox from January 31st through March 6th in front of an audience. Over seven empty arena shows, the average is 2,330,000 and falling 5.4%. The past two weeks have shown a great fall with 2.187 and 2.005 million viewers respectively. If they stay at this level of viewership, their percentage drop will fall in line with Raw. NXT and AEW had the unique circumstance of holding live shows right as the NBA season was being shut down on Wednesday, March 11th along with the news of Rudy Gobert testing positive and U.S. President Donald Trump holding a speech regarding travel restrictions. That night, AEW was hit harder while NXT stayed relatively normal to its typical audience average. I threw out the March 11th figures for the comparison of both shows. NXT averaged 745,000 viewers from January 29th until March 4th over six episodes (if you include the March 11th episode their average would only be down by 3,000 viewers). In the six episodes since, they have averaged 642,000 viewers and declined 14%. AEW averaged 873,000 viewers over their six episodes from January 29th until March 4th. From March 18th until April 22nd, the show has fallen 13% with 758,000 viewers per episode. For the first two empty arena shows, AEW was not hurt at all with its first show doing 932,000 on March 18th and 819,000 on March 25th. The larger drop occurred the next week where it was down to 685,000 viewers. From this data, it would indicate that wrestling fans have tuned out at a rate of approximately 13%. SmackDown has held up better, but the last two weeks would suggest they will be at the same level of decline as the other shows providing that the 2 million viewership mark is their new normal. It was reported in the recent issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that DVR viewership is down across the board, as well. Dave Meltzer notes that Raw and SmackDown’s audience typically grew 20% with DVR viewership and has fallen to 16% over the first four weeks since the shutdown. NXT has fallen from 31% to 26% and AEW has dropped from 38% to 32%.

John Pollock had a very interesting article on the impact empty arena shows have had on wrestling tv ratings.

Originally Posted by Fightful Due to the coronavirus pandemic, WWE has been working with a limited roster over the last month and a half. Pete Dunne, one-half of the NXT Tag Team Champions with Matt Riddle, has been noticeably absent from NXT television as he's remained in the UK. While times are tough and not being able to wrestle isn't easy, Dunne has found a positive to the current situation. “I think it’s a much-needed break in a way,” Dunne told Alex McCarthy of TalkSPORT. “I think for years and years we talked about maybe, is there a way that wrestling could have a kind-of off-season. I think this is a good trial for that for some of us. To be able to be back in England with my family and being able to train a bit differently to how I would if I was on the road and wrestling all the time. I’m just trying to put a positive spin on something that’s hugely negative [coronavirus/lockdown]. But if I was going to [have an off-season], then spending time with the family, training hard, recouping and then coming back better.” With Dunne being absent from television, Timothy Thatcher stepped up as Riddle's tag team partner last Wednesday on NXT, helping Riddle defeated The Undisputed Era.

Originally Posted by Fightful Ricochet & Cedric Alexander may have only been teaming up on Raw for just a few weeks, but it appears that they already have a name. Throughout this week, both wrestlers started tagging themselves on Twitter as #2FlyCrew, seemingly indicating that will be their team name, at least for now.

Link: https://twitter.com/KingRicochet/sta...85738428358656 , https://twitter.com/CedricAlexander/...69350483738624


TPWW Frontpage:

• Ratings: Dark Side of the Ring, WWE Backstage, WWE on FS1, Total Bellas
• Gauntlet Match on Raw Will Determine Apollo Crews’ Money in the Bank Replacement
• Impact Rebellion Results Part 2 – Apr. 28, 2020 – TNA World Championship on the Line?