Daily Update: WBD split, WWE SmackDown, Money in the Bank

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

  • WWE cuts this past week, why and more details, lots of reaction to R-Truth and the story behind it
  • Preview of the WWE Money in the Bank and Worlds Collide shows as well as updated ticket demand for the shows as well as odds
  • New Japan Dominion and Kosei Fujita win Best of the Super Juniors in one of the year’s best matches
  • The most detailed look at the ratings of all the pro wrestling TV shows this past week including competition, segments, demo and what things on the different shows boosted the audience
  • Notes on one of the biggest Arena Mexico shows this year
  • Major arena sells out seven weeks in a row
  • Newcomers behind the scenes as WWE takes over AAA
  • Stardom PPV notes
  • Major signings for Hogan & Bischoff’s RAF company
  • Who has won the most awards in specific categories in the 45 year history of the Observer awards
  • Ratings for the past season of Dark Side of the Ring
  • Notes on wrestlers recently cut by WWE
  • AEW departures and details
  • Advance ticket sales for WWE, AEW and TNA shows
  • Lots more notes on AEW going to Arena Mexico
  • Bryan Danielson says his career highlight
  • Significance of the Phil Davis lawsuit and how it affects TKO and perhaps even WWE
  • Promotion cutting prices to increase ticket buys
  • Notes on MMA reporter Jordan Breen
  • Update on WrestleMania in Las Vegas
  • Nick Khan and Vince McMahon selling TKO stock
  • How much are analysts expecting the WWE PLE right and UFC rights to end up at and what does this mean for the stock price
  • Paul Levesque and Dwayne Johnson
  • Notes on WWE counter programming AEW
  • Bill Goldberg updates
  • How much money has Dwayne Johnson made from WWE since his return 18 months ago
  • Top YouTube viewing numbers this past week

This Week’s Back Issue

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Monday Update

  • Bryan and I will be back tonight talking about the week in wrestling, the WBD split, Ron Killings, Raw and other notes.  
  • We have a front page story on the WBD split going into all the detail we have on it.  When it comes to TNT Sports, this is a potentially gigantic story and could be quite negative.  AEW doesn’t fall into the category of TNT Sports even though it’s listed as sports on the MAX service.  The short version is this could be the most significant story long-term in AEW history, either good or bad.  However,  I don’t expect anything coming from it to affect  AEW programming for at least 12 to 18 months.
  • Smackdown on Friday did 1.42 million viewers and an 0.42 in 18-49.  It went against the NHL playoffs but Programming Insider doesn’t have that number.  It also went against the College Softball World Series which did 2.40 million viewers and 0.47.  The number was well up from the very disappointing number the prior week and is the low end of what normally would be expected.
  • We will likely have an estimate of the international viewership of Money in the Bank in our Raw ratings story that comes out tomorrow.  We do know that on Saturday it was the No. 2 English television show on Netflix in Canada and  No. 1 in Mexico and since it aired on  Sunday outside of North America, on that day it was No. 3 in Australia, No. 2 in India, No. 3 in New Zealand, No. 1 in Saudi Arabia and No. 2 in the U.K.  
  • WWE wrote a press release saying Worlds Collide set a record for the largest live viewing of a live card on YouTube.  I can’t ever recall a  live WWE show on YouTube.  They listed 4.1 million views on YouTube between English and Spanish worldwide but that’s very different from a TV rating as not only can you click in multiple times, you can only watch 30 seconds and maybe less and it’s still counted.  The live show peaked at 764,389 at the end of the main event and was probably in the 615,000 range as far as average viewer minutes live worldwide, which would be comparable to a live viewing number, except it’s worldwide rather than the U.S.  We’ll have that number in the Observer later in the week.
  • No update from yesterday regarding Ben Askren.  
  • Raw tonight is from Phoenix and is headlined by Jey Uso vs. Gunther for the world title.  There are also King of the Ring qualifiers.  The KOR tournament winners will each challenge for world titles at SummerSlam.  Matches tonight are Dominik Mysterio vs. Penta vs. Sami Zayn vs. Bron Breaker and Liv Morgan vs. Rhea Ripley vs. Roxanne Perez vs. Kairi Sane.  Also on the show will be John Cena, R-Truth (billed as that and not as Ron Killings, I’ll try and update that one later), Nikki Bella, Bayley, AJ Styles, CM Punk and the crew of Seth Rollins.  They had 13,654 tickets out earlier today so it’s sold out.  We won’t know for a week, but it’ll be interesting to see if the world title on the show helps the viewing numbers.  
  • We’re looking for your thoughts on Saturday’s Money in the Bank and  Worlds Collide shows.  You can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for each show to dave@wrestlingobserver.com
  • Zoey Stark noted that her knee surgery  was for injuries to her ACL, MCL and Meniscus.
  • Templario and Titan, who are the two best workers in CMLL, will be having a singles match this coming Friday night at Aena Mexico.  The full cad has not been announced.  I did have people rave to be about the Neon vs. Cavernario match on Saturday night at Arena Coliseo.
  • Dax Harwood noted that if they wrestle later this month at Arena Mexico, and they are scheduled to, they will be the first tag team in history to wrestle in the Tokyo Dome, Madison Square Garden, Wembley Stadium and Arena Mexico.  The Young Bucks have never wrestled in MSG.
  • I don’t know the full story on this but New Japan had a PPV joint show with DDT today at Korakuen Hall.  Super Sasadango Machine, the DDT Extreme champion,  went to a double count out with Toru Yano in a match billed as going two hours and six minutes.
  • Joshua Van, who just fought in UFC on Saturday, will replace Manel Kape in a match  on the 6/28 PPV show from the T-Mobile Arena.  He’ll face Brandon Royval.  The reason for Kape’s being off the show is undisclosed.  So  Van has a three week turnaround between fights.
  • Peacock starts airing the second season of “Twisted Metal,” where Samoa Joe, biled as Joe Seanoa, returns as Sweet Tooth.
  • Jamie Horowitz,  who was a major executive hired by Nick Khan, but who was let go in the merger, has the Omaha Productions media company he owns with Peyton Manning debuting a new show called Rabil’s Places on ESPN+ which  debuted this past Wednesday.  The show is about lacrosse and Mick Foley appears on the 6/25 episode.  Foley was a high school lacrosse player.
  • Shotzi Blackheart has been added to the Maple Leaf Wrestling show on 7/5 in Laval,Quebec.
  • Joey Janela announced that he and Tony Deppen will be doing a benefit show for Jeff Cannonball, who is battling ALS.  He said it will be one of the biggest independent shows ever.