Wrestling 2021: The Big Thread Machine

[Ja'moke]

Andrade has announced his first match since leaving WWE... he'll be facing Alberto Del Rio in Texas in July. Yes, the same Alberto Del Rio that is on trial next month for kidnap and sexual assault. Way to kick-off your post WWE career Andrade.

[Ja'moke]

That Inner Circle and Pinnacle parlay was an all time great promo segment.

[Ja'moke]

Mox v Nagata for the IWGP US Title on Dynamite in two weeks!!

This show has been on fire tonight.

[Moribunderast]

Miro murdering Kip was a delight and, yeah, Jericho's promo at the end of the parley was great.

Blood and Guts should be an awesome show next week. It does feel weird that the PPV has nothing built for it yet. I'm glad Hangman lost as it's too early to do him vs. Kenny but it does leave me wondering who gets the PPV title shot. Orange Cassidy? That feels like a weird main event but I would be totally happy with that match, though I felt like Death Triangle vs. Best Friends and Cassidy would be a match.

[Ja'moke]

I'm glad that Blood & Guts isn't going to be a one match show like they said last week. I assume now they meant it's a one match show for the live audience, with the other matches being taped the night before, so they don't have to waste time setting the cage up live on the night.

[Ja'moke]

Dynamite ratings: 889k / 0.33 / 10th

Biden's speech dominated the night.

[Gurke and Hare]

QT Marshall was dressed like he was on World of Sport in 1975.



Penta v OC was fantastic. The Best Friends v Death Triangle no DQ that they're surely going to have at Double or Nothing should be great.

[Deanjam]

I rather like that outfit. Marshall is very boring though.

[BeardFaceMan]

It couldn't be worse than Cody's new jacket. 'Merica!

[Ja'moke]

El Phantasmo is the latest to head through the "forbidden door", announced that he'll be on Impact next week.

This week's quarter ratings:

AEW Dynamite, Wednesday, 28th April

Q1: 803,000 viewers and 403,000 in 18-49 with Team Taz attacking Adam Page, Brian Cage vs. Adam Page and The Elite in the limo.

Q2: 874,000 viewers and 427,000 in 18-49 with the Young Bucks vs. Sydal Brothers and Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian coming out after.

Q3: 898,000 viewers and 421,000 in 18-49 for a Jade Cargill promo piece and the beginning of Orange Cassidy vs. Penta.

Q4: 982,000 viewers and 449,000 in 18-49 for the end of Cassidy vs. Penta, a Britt Baker interview and most of the Inner Circle/Pinnacle promo piece. This segment peaked in 35-49.

Q5: 908,000 viewers and 421,000 in 18-49 for the end of the Jericho promo, the in-ring with Eddie Kingston and Michael Nakazawa that included Kenny Omega, Jon Moxley and Don Callis, plus Taz & Christian.

Q6: 868,000 viewers and 404,000 in 18-49 for Kris Statlander vs. Penelope Ford and the beginning of Dustin Rhodes & Billy Gunn & Lee Johnson vs. QT Marshall & Aaron Solow & Nick Comoroto.

Q7: 867,000 viewers and 431,000 in 18-49 for the ending of the six-man tag, Cody Rhodes & Marshall brawling and Miro attacking Kip Sabian.

Q8: 909,000 viewers and 470,000 in 18-49 for Darby Allin vs. 10 for the TNT title plus post-match. The main event peaked 18-49 and 18-34.

Weirdly low first quarter. Apparently the lead-in was 40% down on usual. But I still think that is strangely low. The Biden speech started at 9 pm, which I think is reflected in the drops from Q5 onwards. But then the main event rose back up to 909k, again, Darby Allin is a consistent ratings draw no matter who he is against. Also great to see Penta v OC doing so well.

NXT, Tuesday, 27th April

Q1: 752,000 viewers and 267,000 in 18-49 with Dakota Kai vs. Mercedes Martinez.

Q2: 682,000 viewers and 256,000 in 18-49 for the Raquel Gonzalez beatdown of Martinez, Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart and Frankie Monet, Cameron Grimes and the Grizzled Young Veterans with Tommaso Ciampa & Timothy Thatcher.

Q3: 704,000 viewers and 276,000 in 18-49 with an Isaiah Scott interview, Toni Storm vs. Zayda Ramir and a Santos Escobar interview.

Q4: 728,000 viewers and 275,000 in 18-49 for an LA Knight promo and Austin Theory vs. Bronson Reed.

Q5: 787,000 viewers and 298,000 in 18-49 for the Theory vs. Reed post-match, MSK & Kushida interview, The Way Interview and the beginning of Imperium vs. Killian Dain & Drake Maverick. This was the 18-34 peak.

Q6: 770,000 viewers and 292,000 in 18-49 for Imperium vs. Dain & Maverick, a Pete Dunne interview and Cameron Grimes and Ted DiBiase.

Q7: 764,000 viewers and 300,000 in 18-49 for Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell beating down Ember Moon & Shotzi Blackheart with flowers and food and the Arash Markazi interview with Adam Cole.

Q8 761,000 viewers and 303,000 in 18-49 for Kushida & MSK vs. Escobar & Raul Mendoza & Joaquin Wilde. This was the 18-49 and 35-49 peak of the show.

[Ja'moke]

Reigns and Bryan just had an absolute barnburner on Smackdown. Oh and Reigns FINALLY has new music.

[up_the_hampipe]

Reigns' new theme is pretty cool.

[Ja'moke]

I really like the intro, I wish it would have broken down into an epic guitar solo though like The Rock's Hollywood theme. They never seem to do that stuff anymore.

[up_the_hampipe]

Get yer VPN running and watch the first part of the new Dark Side of the Ring about Brian Pillman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS25e3DZAU0

[up_the_hampipe]

I said "holy shit" out loud when I saw what Melanie Pillman looks like today.

[MrMrs]

just download it or watch it on watchwrestling

[Ja'moke]

Andrade just appeared in a vignette at AAA's show tonight and challenged Kenny Omega foe the AAA Mega championship at TripleMania.

[peanutbutter]

I said "holy shit" out loud when I saw what Melanie Pillman looks like today.

I was suprised she was still both alive and able to be found for the show tbh, from what I recall she was a junkie even before he died? Wasn't she supposed to be outta it on crack cocaine the night Vince dragged her onto Raw?

From what I know though, his first wife had big time drug issues too and the first half of the doc seemed to completely gloss over that?

[Moribunderast]

So apparently Bryan Danielson's WWE contract is expired. According to Meltzer WWE are (unsurprisingly) pushing hard for him to re-sign. I always figured, despite his comments about wanting to do matches elsewhere in interviews, that he'd remain in WWE to keep Brie and Total Bellas happy. The fact he hasn't re-signed while actually under contract is interesting though. I won't yet dare to dream of him in New Japan and AEW but I'd dearly love it to be so.

[BeardFaceMan]

I saw him say that he wanted to wrestle elsewhere while still staying with WWE, does he have the kind of juice to get that to happen, would WWE be willing to let him do that in order to keep him? This could be an interesting one to keep an eye on.

[Ja'moke]

He also said that he felt really detached before and during his recent WrestleMania main event match. He said he'd never had that feeling before. And saw it as a sign that it is time to wind down and take a more part-time schedule so he can focus on his family.

That said, he also said he still loves wrestling, and that there are lots of guys he still wants to wrestle, across various companies. It kind of made me get the vibe of Moxley when he left WWE.

It was never just about the money for Mox. He wanted to reignite his passion for wrestling. And now Mox is living the dream, he gets to work for one of the top companies on TNT, where he's had a great run, while turning up in New Japan, doing Bloodsport, and now set to wrestle Nick fucking Gage in GCW. I bet there's part of Bryan that is envious of that.

[Gurke and Hare]

If his contract's expired, he doesn't have to wait 90 days right? He could theoretically show up on Dynamite tonight? [nb this isn't me expecting that he will]

[BeardFaceMan]

I think they have that written intot he contract, that if it expires they still have to wait 90 days. But I think they comply just so they can keep getting paid, they get paid for those 90 days to do nothing, basically. But if they wanted to, they could show up right away and wouldn't get sued, they would just lose out on 3 months worth of free cash. How long did Mox wait before he went to AEW, that wasn't 90 days was it? I think that was only a month or so, but that shows that it wasn't about the money for Mox, he just wanted to wrestle the way he wanted to. I think that '90 day no compete' thing is legally dubious at best. "Right, you're on Eastenders and your contract expires and you're going to Corrie to play a different character, but you have to wait 90 days before appearing on their show because we fucking made you or something", I can't see that flying.

[Gurke and Hare]

I think that '90 day no compete' thing is legally dubious at best. "Right, you're on Eastenders and your contract expires and you're going to Corrie to play a different character, but you have to wait 90 days before appearing on their show because we fucking made you or something", I can't see that flying.

Right, but the 90 days thing is usually when wrestlers are released before the contract ends isn't it? So effectively, there's a standard clause in the WWE contract allowing them to give wrestlers 90 days' notice - gardening leave, essentially. But when a contract expires, you can't be bound by it any more.

If AEW did sign him though, would it be announced by a surprise appearance, or would it make more sense ratings wise for them to announce him on a Monday, with "Bryan Danielson is All Elite and will be on Dynamite on Wednesday"?

[BeardFaceMan]

It's definitely confusing, especially when you add in that they aren't employees, they're contractors.

I think if it was down to AEW then it would be a "lights out at the end of the show" scenario but I bet TNT would want to promote the shit out of it. Usually I would go for a suprise but with a name this big I'd probably go with the promotion.

[Huxleys Babkins]

Ideally you want them to turn up by surprise at the end of the show as a cliffhanger. It drives views/buys of the next show because social media will be buzzing.

[kitsofan34]

Didn't TNT dislike Sting's surprise appearance and wanted those things promoted beforehand from now on? I personally really like the surprise element, it's better to teach the audience that anything can happen at anytime.

There is zero reason for Bryan to resign with WWE. He talks an awful big game but resigned once before, only to immediately be put in a feud with Big Cass. Him and his wife have enough money to live off for the rest of their lives, he clearly wants to wrestle outside of the company, even a WM main event couldn't give him a buzz. It's a total no brainer.

[BeardFaceMan]

Didn't TNT dislike Sting's surprise appearance and wanted those things promoted beforehand from now on? I personally really like the surprise element, it's better to teach the audience that anything can happen at anytime.

That's the way I see it too, you promote the show as being unmissable because you don't know what's going to happen (the only time I want to see a full match card in advance is for a PPV). TNT want to promote everything that happens on the show in advance. With Sting, I can't see that announcing him beforehand would drive the viewership up, no one was tuning in to AEW for the first time just to see Sting so it made sense for him to be a suprise. With a genuine big name like Bryan though, someone who could actually bring in new viewers, it would make more sense to promote him beforehand. There's a few lessons that could be learned from the Christian Cage reveal too.

[Ja'moke]

If his contract's expired, he doesn't have to wait 90 days right? He could theoretically show up on Dynamite tonight? [nb this isn't me expecting that he will]

That's right. There is no no-compete if the contract just expires. It's only if a wrestler is released from their contract early.

Didn't TNT dislike Sting's surprise appearance and wanted those things promoted beforehand from now on? I personally really like the surprise element, it's better to teach the audience that anything can happen at anytime.

That's what Jericho claimed. But then Tony Khan later cleared it up and said Jericho miscontrued the message. He said it basically depends on who the surprise is, some things make more sense to be advertised ahead of time, others work better out of the blue. Tony said that TNT loved the Sting surprise.

Also, viewers still switched over to AEW when Sting first appeared because the news quickly spread, and his segment bumped the show over 1 mil. And then they did even stronger ratings for the show the following week. So the surprise element built hype and made people tune in again the following week. So surprises work.

There is zero reason for Bryan to resign with WWE. He talks an awful big game but resigned once before, only to immediately be put in a feud with Big Cass. Him and his wife have enough money to live off for the rest of their lives, he clearly wants to wrestle outside of the company, even a WM main event couldn't give him a buzz. It's a total no brainer.

He said in a recent interview that he's been trying to work out a deal with WWE where they'll let him wrestle elsewhere. We'll see if they go for that offer in an attempt to keep him.

[Gurke and Hare]

He said in a recent interview that he's been trying to work out a deal with WWE where they'll let him wrestle elsewhere. We'll see if they go for that offer in an attempt to keep him.

I wonder if they'll go along with it less to keep him in WWE than to keep him out of AEW?