POST SCHEDULE
Tonight: Rewind-A-Dynamite
Thursday: Pollock & Ting – TALK (POST Wrestling Café)
Friday: X-Men (2000) review with Rich Fann & WH Park
Friday: Rewind-A-SmackDown
Saturday: The Long & Winding Royal Road feat. Daniel Makabe (Kobashi & Kikuchi vs. Kroffat & Furnas)
Saturday: Collision Course
Sunday: UFC 302 with John Pollock & Eric Marcotte (11 a.m. ET)
WRESTLING NEWS
**AEW returns to the Kia Forum for Dynamite in Inglewood, California after the Double or Nothing pay-per-view. The second Casino Gauntlet Match highlights the show, where the winner will challenge for the AEW Championship at Forbidden Door. The match was introduced earlier this year where there were an unknown number of participants with each entrant a mystery. As of Wednesday morning, there was no announcement if MJF would appear on the show after his return, and would probably be the biggest hook for the show. Dynamite will avoid the NBA playoffs due to the Boston Celtics eliminating the Indiana Pacers on Monday night. Next week, Dynamite will air against Game 3 of the NBA Finals but will be their last week airing against the NBA playoffs. WrestleTix reports over 4,800 tickets distributed at the Kia Forum with the following lineup advertised:
*Forbidden Door Casino Gauntlet (Participants: TBA)
*IWGP World Heavyweight Title – Eliminator Bout: Jon Moxley © vs. Rocky Romero
*Non-title match: Swerve Strickland © vs. Killswitch
*Mariah May vs. Saraya
*Young Bucks address the future of the TNT title
*The debut of “TV Time with Chris Jericho”
*Championship Celebration for Mercedes Mone
*Don Callis presents a contract for the Don Callis Family
**An additional WWE front office release over the past week was Michael Izzi, who served as a Senior Marketing Manager. Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics learned of Izzi’s release and reported it on Wrestlenomics Radio this past Sunday. Izzi worked as a sales intern at the company for three months in 2011 and returned the following year in affiliate sales. Izzi was named Marketing Manager in February 2020 and earned a senior role earlier this year. Izzi was part of Beth Fisher’s team, who was also listed among the recent cuts. Fisher served as WWE’s Head of Corporate Social Responsibility.
**This past Monday’s episode of Raw averaged 1,690,000 viewers and 725,000 (0.55) in the 18-49 demographic. The viewership and demo audience declined by two percent from last week. The context is worth noting that last week’s Raw didn’t air against the NBA playoffs while this week’s ran against Game 4 of the Celtics vs. Pacers, so only dropping by two percent is a good sign considering the millions watching the NBA. Raw will only air against the NBA Finals if the series goes to a fifth game on June 17. (Wrestlenomics)
**In Canada, Raw averaged 261,900 viewers and 76,300 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. The audience grew by sixteen percent from last week but the demo audience decreased by twelve percent. Raw ranked fifth among sports programming on Monday behind the NHL playoffs, Toronto Blue Jays vs. Chicago White Sox, and two editions of Sportsnet Central.
**The taped edition of Friday Night SmackDown from Saudi Arabia this past week averaged 2,147,000 viewers and 739,000 (0.56) on the 18-49 demographic. The show only dropped by two percent in viewership and a decline of four percent in the demo compared with the live episode the week before. Once again, it shows how little live versus taped has on the audience especially when you’re talking about several hours instead of several days. Although, AEW just did a great figure for Collision on May 18 for a show taped two nights earlier. Friday’s episode aired against the Dallas Mavericks vs. Minnesota Timberwolves (6.14 million viewers and a 1.99 rating in 18-49) and Florida Panthers vs. New York Rangers (2.12 million and 0.66). (Sports Media Watch)
**SmackDown averaged 222,300 viewers and 74,200 in the 25-54 demo on Sportsnet 360 in Canada.
**AEW Rampage aired at 6 p.m. ET this past Friday due to the NBA playoff schedule and averaged 222,000 viewers and 104,000 (0.08) in the 18-49 demographic on TNT. Rampage has not aired in its normal slot since April 12, so trying to assign any significance to these figures is meaningless as this would be Rampage’s worst slow without having Dynamite or Collision as a lead-in and airing on a Friday at 6 p.m. ET and 3 p.m. on the West Coast.
**Saturday’s live edition of Collision from Las Vegas averaged 415,000 viewers and 198,000 (0.18) in the 18-49 demographic on TBS (not on TNT due to the NBA). Collision’s audience fell by 21 percent from the previous week, although the demo audience only dropped by one percent. There was a big jump among women in the 18-49 demo as it grew from 40,000 to 70,000 viewers this week but males in the category dropped by fifteen percent. The Celtics vs. Pacers game had 6.48 million viewers and a 1.72 rating in the demo while the Oilers vs. Stars averaged 1.46 million and a 0.47 rating. (Wrestlenomics)
**Each day brings more speculation and theories regarding AEW’s domestic television rights package, furthered by Puck’s reporting of an offer from Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Reporter Matt Belloni stated that the offer made by WBD was seen as ‘disappointing’ by Tony Khan, a characterization that AEW has refuted through Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. It is easy to get into semantics over wording. Still, the bottom line is no deal is signed and the larger issue is Khan’s intent on putting his rights on the free market after the exclusive negotiating window expires or staying with the incumbent. It’s the biggest set of negotiations in AEW’s history with many caveats. One component is the status of AEW’s pay-per-view content and if the premium content is baked into the offer to stream on Max, which could greatly affect the offer’s value rather than looking at an apples-to-apples comparison from the last deal. Another issue is the term, which hasn’t been focused on heavily. AEW could receive a handsome upgrade but extrapolated over six, seven, or even ten years represent drastically different views of the offer. In 2019, UFC began its deal with ESPN, considered a great deal for the promotion. Today, Mark Shapiro states they are under-monetized and given the growth, he can make a sound argument that they are and benefit from signing a deal through the end of 2025 instead of 2030. There are way too many moving pieces to make any prediction on how this will play out with WBD still figuring out its future with the NBA if they will contest the definition of its matching rights, what effect the loss of the NBA will have on TNT’s carriage fees of $3 per subscriber (second only to ESPN), and a massive debt of $39 billion. Belloni’s report stated the exclusive window expires in July, which is consistent with Fightful’s report that it goes into the summer and would open the door to gauge the wider interest in AEW programming. Many different outcomes are possible and it’s silly to marry one’s self to a conclusion but in any negotiations, a lot is at stake and theories will be posited but it isn’t hyperbolic to say this deal will dictate the trajectory of AEW and its financial viability.
**Tony Khan was on The Rich Eisen Show on Wednesday and donated his neck brace to Eisen’s “Run Rich Run” charity to benefit St. Jude’s. Khan followed by bidding $100,000 for the neck brace and donated it to Eisen’s studio.
.@AEW owner/CEO @TonyKhan stopped by ahead of #AEWDynamite here in Los Angeles to talk about getting a TK Driver, wearing the neck brace in the @Jaguars #NFLDraft war room and why it’ll be forever in our studios!
Just an amazing gesture for @stjude:#AEW @TBSNetwork pic.twitter.com/qLL4mFVwfh
— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) May 29, 2024
**The final A Block round-robin matches in the Best of the Super Juniors take place on Thursday at Korakuen Hall at 5:30 a.m. ET. Below are the matches:
*Blake Christian (10) vs. Kosei Fujita (4)
*Kevin Knight (8) vs. BUSHI (6)
*Clark Connors (8) vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (6)
*El Desperado (10) vs. HAYATA (10)
*TJP (8) vs. Titan (10)
The top two will advance to the semi-final next Monday. If there are any tiebreaker situations, Titan is in the driver’s position with wins against Desperado and HAYATA but lost to Blake Christian in the round-robin portion. Blake Christian has losses to Desperado & HAYATA but beat Titan. If TJP wins, he would have ten points and would hold wins over Titan, Desperado, HAYATA, and Blake Christian, and seems like a good possibility of being a semi-finalist. The B Block wraps up on Friday with Hiromu Takahashi and Taiji Ishimori tied at twelve points and having a match together with Robbie Eagles, SHO, and DOUKI tied with ten points. The winner of Hiromu and Ishimori advances to the semi-finals, SHO is eliminated because his last match was with Francesco Akira and his ten points include the forfeit win, and DOUKI vs. Robbie Eagles is a key match with the winner ending with twelve points. Eagles lost to both Takahashi and Ishimori, so he appears to be out, and DOUKI has won against Takahashi but lost to Ishimori.
**Former WWE on-air personality Matt Camp has launched The Wrestling Matt Show and sharing stories of his tenure with the company from 2019 until earlier this year. Camp shared several stories about the divide between the television and digital sides of the company with Camp attached to the digital end. He spoke of the issues the team at ‘The Bump’ faced, weaving in and out of storyline talking points, the changes after Vince McMahon was out of the picture, and producing content during the pandemic.
**Chris Jericho appeared on KCAL in California to promote tonight’s show at the Kia Forum. Jericho is very good in these settings and explains the industry and character dynamics to a non-wrestling audience. He spoke of “reading the room” and knowing when to adjust his character stating that some fans don’t like him right now and fueled The Learning Tree version of Jericho.
**Pollstar data revealed that WWE’s May 1 live event in Bologna, Italy sold 8,488 tickets and drew a gate of $548,399 (U.S.) at the Unipol Arena.
**Rugido is the latest entrant into MLW’s Battle Riot match this Saturday at Center Stage in Atlanta. The other announced members of the match include Matt Riddle, Sami Callihan, Ernest Miller, Timothy Thatcher, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Bobby Fish, Mistico, Mads Krule Krugger, Paul Walter Hauser, Matt Justice, Jimmy Yang, AKIRA, Bad Dude Tito Escondido, 1 Called Manders, Jake Crist, Brett Ryan Gosselin, Mr. Thomas, Ikuro Kwon, Josh Bishop, and CONTRA’s new Crusader.
**VICE has released a teaser for ‘Who Killed WCW?’ ahead of next Tuesday’s premiere. The clip features Eric Bischoff, Kevin Nash, Konnan, and producer Neal Pruitt detailing the famous segment where Nash & Scott Hall attacked members of the WCW roster including Rey Mysterio. The series four-part series debuts Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET.
FIRST LOOK 🔥
The reality-based nature of the nWo invasion was groundbreaking in its authenticity. Producer Neal Pruitt and @RealKevinNash breakdown the cinematic inspirations for the infamous “lawn dart” moment.
“Who Killed WCW?” premieres Tuesday at 10PM on @vicetv. pic.twitter.com/aCTnbkwoYn
— Dark Side of the Ring (@DarkSideOfRing) May 29, 2024
**The TKO closed at $108.83 on Wednesday and has grown by fifteen percent over the past month.
**The UFC has developed a series called Fight Inc: Inside the UFC, which premieres on June 14 on Roku. The trailer focuses on Dana White and the day-to-day operations of running the promotion along with fellow executives and fighters featured. Prior to Ultimate Fighter, the idea for a reality series was closer to this version and profiling White rather than the reality series built around fighters inside of a house battling for UFC contracts.
**Episode 2 of UFC Embedded going into UFC 302:
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POLLOCK & THURSTON
John Pollock and Brandon Thurston cover the latest reporting on AEW’s media rights negotiation process, including when the exclusive window with Warner Bros. Discovery may be closing.
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upNXT
Braden Herrington and Davie Portman review WWE NXT from May 27th, 2024 featuring Trick Williams & Je’Von Evans vs Gallus.
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REWIND-A-RAW
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw following King and Queen of the Ring featuring Becky Lynch vs. Liv Morgan in a Steel Cage match.
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AEW DOUBLE OR NOTHING
John Pollock and Wai Ting review AEW Double or Nothing 2024 featuring Anarchy in the Arena.
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