It does seem to be trending that way. The Jacksonville Jaguars owners is a huge wrestling fan and apparently involved. So much so that he filed some trademarks for the potential promotion. Cody was also in the owners suite for a Jaguars game a couple weeks ago.

There does seem to be an opportunity for a second major promotion. ROH felt close but Sinclair just never wanted to invest in the product. NJPW is still just testing the waters here. And Impact is Impact.

Still doubt it would ever be hugely profitable. But for a billionaire, it's a toy and a drop in the bucket.

I did enjoy the Balor / McIntyre match, and thought the Styles / Bryan match was excellent and told a good story.

Funny when you let professional wrestlers wrestle, how things are so much better. Way more interesting than throwing pancakes, bad GM angles, and putting out guys that haven't meant anything in 10 years.

Speaking of that, is Randy Orton the most boring wrestler on the planet?

I think a major problem with the PPV was for a combined PPV we saw no cross matches/involvement minus the women's matches. Instead of giving both shows a chance to get one of the shared belts, they just gave a normal match you'd see weekly. The women interacted with the opposite show before and during matches. I would have enjoyed seeing a shakeup with titles before the shakeup that is supposed to happen tonight.

I will admit that I didn't notice that there were dragons on DB's knees last night.

That was kind of the epitome of a no-fucks-given match for me. It was like random booking in week 73 of an extended TEW sandbox dynasty.

I liked Orton in the past. I think he's just at a stage in his career where he doesn't give a fuck and the company doesn't seem to give a fuck either.

They could probably position him as the guy that helps get younger talent over. He's a great heel when he wants to be.

Around here pretty much every Orton sighting is accompanied by me saying that he'd probably be pretty good in the NJPW Tag League.

I don't even think that he can do that anymore.

His problem is that at this point in his career, he hasn't elevated himself into the "legend" category, so he's basically a more in-shape version of Big Show or Mark Henry or R-Truth. People that may have meant something at one point, but their stories have been told, and now they are just cluttering our TV screens. They just need to let those guys go.

I loved the show Friends, but I'm glad they aren't showing season 24 of Friends on TV today. If I want my Monica and Chandler moments, I can just load up Netflix and watch it. Randy Orton is Season 24 of Friends.

Good grief, Raw was a steaming pile. It felt like the classic VKM bait & switch, I'm going to say one thing but then give you just the opposite & your only option is to eat the shit sandwich & smile.

I fast forwarded through most of it but it seemed like Vince came out to say things would be different and then they just did the same old shit.

I guess giving Tyler Breeze a short IC title match is "giving the fans what they want".

Vince will never change.

You think a "tv deal" on Pop TV was bad?

Wait til Impact gets a load of their new home: Pursuit
For comparison, Pop has about 70m homes ... Pursuit has 43m homes

How bad is the situation? Impact owners have a "significant minority interest" in the parent of Pursuit ... which not only leaves them in the 10p timeslot of death but actually makes things worse by moving them from Thursdays (on Pop) to Fridays (on Pursuit).

Never heard of the channel and pretty sure I don't get it.

Tickets acquired for the Feb 1 NJPW show in Charlotte.

And now, we wait (to find out whether we get a good card or not)

And as of midnight, All Elite Wrestling is officially "a thing"

Cody, Bucks, Hangman, SCU and Fatass Masa all appeared in vignettes on tonight's much-hyped announcement episode of BTE -- Omega, Ibushi, Jericho all absent ... which is at least a decent show of respect to NJPW on their part.

More info supposedly coming from Jacksonville next week according to dirt/rumors.

Basically looks like Tony Khan is the money mark, but damned if I've seen anyone attached to this that I think can do even a halfway decent job of booking it :/

WTF is a booker? That's what you hire professional writers for.

I'm comfortable that they have people who can write individual promos, segements, bits.

I'm not convinced they have anyone who can stitch all of that together with actual wrestling in an entertaining way.

Maybe we'll find out that Daniels or Kaz are the lovechild of Heyman & Cornette and brings the best of both to the table ... but that seems like a stretch.

Cody learn anything from his Dad?

I think it's a good strategy going for Tuesday shows assuming they can find a TV deal with Smackdown going to Friday nights on FOX.

RIP Mean Gene Okerlund

Edit: Definitely the best ever at the backstage interviewer role. In fact, I can't think of another person who ever added anything to that position other than being a microphone holder. Maybe Lance Russell a little bit, but, he played it much more straight - Gene was perfect for the WWE expansion and Rise of WCW in the Monday Night Wars.

Remember him from a long, long time ago. RIP.

Ahhh, it's tough to think of anyone else who played that 'role' any better, imo. He had great stage presence and really worked to bring out the best in the guys, whatever they were trying to get over. RIP Mean Gene. :(

omg, i still remember him shilling the WCW hotline

1-900-909-9900!

And Wrestle Kingdom 13 is underway, pre-show match anyway.

At my age, it's a long way til about 7a from here, even with a pre-show nap.

I'll get there, but it ain't entirely easy.

Huge preshow news for NJPW:
G1 Climax will begin ... in Dallas, Texas (one week earlier, 7/7 I think it was, then resuming back in Japan on the same mid-July date as last year)
First show after Climax ends? ... in London

edit to correct:
The other announcement was that next year's WK will be a 2-day event in the Tokyo Dome.
no word on what that means for New Year's Dash but I suspect it may be nixed

fwiw, my as-they-finished match ratings for WK 13. There will, I think, be some differences between these & the IWC consensus, but these are mine
(copy & paste formatting after 5+ hours, so forgive these being in reverse order)



IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Kenny Omega (c) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi
5.0*

IWGP Intercontinental Championship: Chris Jericho (c) vs. Tetsuya Naito
5.0*

Kazuchika Okada vs. Jay White
4.5*

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Championship: Kushida (c) vs. Taiji Ishimori
4.0*

IWGP United States Championship: Cody (c) vs. Juice Robinson
3.25*

IWGP Tag Team Championship: Guerrillas of Destiny (c) vs. EVIL & Sanada vs. The Young Bucks
4.0*

RevPro British Heavyweight Championship: Tomohiro Ishii (c) vs. Zack Sabre Jr.
3.75*

IWGP Jr. Tag Team Championship: Yoshinobu Kanemaru & El Desperado (c) vs. Roppongi 3K vs. BUSHI & Shingo Takagi
2.5*

NEVER Openweight Championship: Kota Ibushi (c) vs. Will Ospreay
4.0*

Among the post-WK stuff ... I see where Chris Jericho congratulated Tiger Hattori on working his final Tokyo Dome match.

And in the day after, there seems to be growing momentum to the Omega-to-WWE rumors rather than the seemingly more assured Omega-to-AEW idea.

In an interview with Tokyo Sports, Kenny Omega says he can't work in Tanahashi's NJPW (kayfabe lives) and that it's time for him to go.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, Jim Ross "likes" AEW's post asking "who's joining us Tuesday in Jacksonville"

Also confirmed, Kushida will leave NJPW at the conclusion of his contract on Jan 31. "I will head overseas and see the world of pro wrestling"

Also, announced cards for Dominion shows in Japan dramatically reduce the available workers to be sent to the LA/CHA/NAS shows in the U.S.

Basically FinJuice and Best Friends seem like locks (since they're working ROH tapings in the region for the next month) with only Ishii, Goto, Rappongi 3K and maybe Ospreay (currently in the UK) as available names.

Since I'll see Finlay, Baretta, and Taylor (and probably Juice for at least a run-in save) this weekend at the ROH TV taping in Atlanta, it's gonna take more than those four to make it worth driving to Charlotte from here just two weeks later. And it might require Ishii to keep my tickets from landing on the aftermarket.

Maybe 200 or so (?) on hand in Jacksonville for the AEW pep rally (complete with Jags cheerleaders)

In addition to the crew we knew about, we get (in kinda reverse order):
Jericho, PAC (or Neville if you prefer), Janela (and wife Penelope Ford), indy heel Maxwell J Freidman. Billy Gunn shown on social media but not introduced to the crowd, he's their first producer. Also announced a working arrangement with Chinese indy OWE (the Shaolin monk trainees that got some YouTube buzz early last year)

Hosts were podcaster Conrad Thompson & SI NFL Insider Alex Marvez

Double Nothing is Sat 5/25 at MGM Gardens Arena in Vegas
Another spot show will run in Jacksonville (no date given) before then

Audio was sketchy, the whole thing felt a bit amateurish to me at times. They have a long way to go to be prime time.

If Jericho takes this serious and puts in the effort, he's a nice star to headline the brand off the bat (or at least drive in some casual fans). Still think they'll need a couple more big names from NJPW/ROH/indies and maybe a WWE defector or two (Revival for instance). But Jericho can't come cheap so maybe Khan is willing to pay up.

This has to be a great time for Omega. NJPW kind of needs to keep him. AEW kind of needs a star like him to launch. And WWE has a ton of money coming from a new TV deal and could really use him as well. He's going to be a wealthy man if that's what he wants.

Also saw that WWE.com already took down Jericho's profile from the site.

Few more names that appeared at the rally I guess. Scorpio Sky, Kazarian, Daniels

I included them in the "crew we already knew about" - along with (Dr.) Britt Baker.

You may (or may not) have seen already, Kenny's gone from NJPW.

The growing narrative today is that he wanted to stay but chose to leave once NJPW chose to cut ties with AEW. (word today is that no NJPW talent will be allowed to do anything with them)

Maybe Jon can answer this but why does it seem so hard for these promotions to get on TV? Seems like we're in an era where cable networks and online streaming platforms are craving any kind of content they can get. I know they don't carry a big audience but a lot of the weird reality shows don't either. Wouldn't a few hundred thousand be a big deal for an obscure cable network?

Part of that is how many can get "a few hundred thousand"? Impact hasn't seen 200k in a while now. ROH (last on cable in, what, 2015) was in the 100k - 150k range at most. Lucha Underground averaged 130k I believe, and that's if you give full credit for the replay that follows (under 100k for a standalone episode).

So with that, you're talking about numbers that are around a 50th place network. (avg audience 6a-6a) Who are those networks? Here's 45 - 55
pulled from a random week in November: FS1, FSX, Weather Channel, Science, CMT, Tru, E!, Sundance, Nicktoons, Velocity, CNBC
note: I took the lower 6a-6a ratings in order to open up an overnight slot possibility. None of those numbers really warrant prime time on a top 50 network & after the top 50 or so, you really don't have a huge swing between prime and random hour out of 24.

So maybe 3 candidates in that group (FS1, FSX, Tru). If you go all the way down to network 80 you find ... Destination America. There's maybe another half dozen candidates you could find from 50 down to 110th place. I mean, MLB Network, Tennis Channel, Baby First TV, they're not running wrestling no matter the ratings.

Then we come to the thousand pound gorilla: the pushback wrestling gets from advertisers. You're talking about a pretty limited set of candidates, ones that have to be willing to deal with (the image of) violence & other social matters.

So now a network is looking at a limited audience, that's not aligned with the often highly specialized target (unfriendly for crosspromoting other shows on the network), that has a limited pool of potential advertisers (how do ya think Stacker II ended up as a TNA sponsor?)

Advertisers - generally speaking - still think of wrestling audiences as being uneducated rubes, without a pot to piss in. And you can show them all the demographic research in the world but it's an image that is incredibly hard to overcome unless someone in the decision making loop is already favorably disposed. At the local market level I've had ROH offered to me at times for about 1/10th the typical rate for the same daypart, and even then unless you wanted Men 18-24 very specifically it was not a great buy.

So you end up with a show that relatively few people watch that's exceptionally difficult to sell and carries a p.r. risk.

How many networks are chomping at the bit for that?

Jon, Bischoff dove into this a bit as well on one of his 83 weeks podcasts episodes.


You would know the term, but I forgot, basically its once you get viewers to your channel how many stay for the next program. And he claimed that even at their peak of the monday night wars Wrestling had the lowest holdover rate of any programming. So there no incentive other than direct ad sales for a network to carry them.

I know you think I'm crazy when it comes to TV but FOX did take the jump with the WWE.

How much pull would Turner have any more with Turner Broadcasting Systems? If Ted didn't have to fund the company (with Kahn behind it) would it be worth him (personally) to try to do anything to hurt Vince?

I mean TBS or TNT shows freaking Video Game leagues now. If not them, maybe AT&T Sports (not sure of the numbers nationally there). Hell, even the Cartoon Network (which seems to be in every house) could use more content with them having FOX pull shows from them over the past year. Turner Sports has no direct channels minus NBA.com's NBATV, correct?

I don't know if the Winnipeg connection between Jericho and Omega (and Don Callis) should be overlooked here. All three are very close. As far as I understand it, Callis and Omega go way back, in that Callis gave Omega his first break in the business and saw something in Omega early on and helped with his development.

The friendship between Callis and Jericho also goes way back to the early 90's and I believe it was Callis that first really put Jericho and Omega together and also helped coordinate Jericho coming into NJPW to wrestle with Omega. I believe Omega and/or Jericho also factored into Callis getting a color commentary job with NJPW.

That all said, it seems as if all three have a ton of respect for each other and I could see a discussion between them about all working together to play a major role in the part of a new company.

Of course, there is the whole issue of Callis' role as Impact Wrestling Executive Vice President. I don't know if this means that we'll see Callis jumping ship whenever his contract at Impact expires or whether it means Impact will have a very open working relationship with AEW (or maybe I'm just completely out to lunch on all of this speculation). I know AEW may not want to be associated with the taint that is Impact/TNA.

Callis would certainly help AEW as far as experience in running a business, booking, etc. He helped book and run several independents throughout his career and I'm sure the experience at Impact would carryover (and with that said, apparently the booking and storylines at Impact have been pretty good as of late... nobody watching notwithstanding).

In that instance, I don't think you're crazy, I think Fox was crazy. There's not really any projection I've seen - taking into account the deadly timeslot -that has the show doing a better number than they currently get off reruns of cooking shows and the like. It's the sort of deal that will lead to some TV execs getting fired if they don't have an huge out clause.


To my understanding there's no pull there at all. I mean, who knows I guess but that was a fairly acrimonious parting back in the day. The former Turner networks are reportedly in the conversation with/for AEW, so if they want to dive in then the door already exists.


Here's the current laundry list


I took the liberty of bolding the one that seems like the obvious play to me (and one that's been mentioned several times for wrestling in the past)

AT&T SN really isn't a factor. Not available in all states, relatively sparse household count, and such a barely there entity that AT&T doesn't usually bother with an internal sales force but rather signs local sales agreements with cable operators (i.e. Cox sales people sell it in Denver, Spectrum sales people sell it in Charlotte, etc etc)

And something to keep in mind about eLeague & Turner - they own a piece of the league itself, along with co-founders IMG.

Thanks. That makes much more sense. Didn't realize how low the wrestling numbers were or how many viewers some of those smaller cable channels get. I was still thinking back when TNA was getting like a million viewers on Spike.

Do you see AEW getting any kind of TV deal? I'd have to think Kahn is crazy to fund the promotion if they didn't have some sort of TV deal in place. But with the numbers you posted, it seems unlikely they get on a big cable network of any sort.

Then again, do they need primetime? Wouldn't a small promotion be fine with a midnight time slot or something?

My gut is that they believe TV is coming, though my odds-on guess is that it'll be AXS. If not, then WGN America (which is a million miles from what the WGN brand would have meant a few decades ago).

Truth with most wrestling companies is that they probably need TV more than TV needs them. I do question whether anything short of legit prime has enough direct value - imaging/branding not withstanding - for it to be worth the expense.

Adding to my concern in AEW's case is the apparent gap between broadcast quality & where they are today. Yesterday's "pep rally" was downright painful at times, with a lot of stuff occurring off-mic that should have been on-mic. They really ought to hope that nobody involved in TV negotiations saw it.

The ROH approach? I don't think it works to be honest if you are trying to hold PPV at big arenas versus smaller ones.

Use Vegas as an example. ROH is usually at Sam's Club which might hold 500 people and AEW has announced MGM Grand Garden which is 17k? I don't see how you can make plans for this without having a TV deal that doesn't involve a 2 AM time slot on Sinclair networks.

Yeah, I thought about WGN too. I mean they did an hour of All In, I just never saw what the ratings were or what the production value looked like on TV.

I think one of the WWE things taken for granted is their production value/abilities. AEW has to go from recording things on your phone to actually trying to making a quality TV product. Not sure Billy Gunn is the man for that (did they say he was in charge?)

I think the phrasing was something like "he's our first producer hire"

They wisely announced that pretty low key, was not part of the actual pep rally, was just shown on social media from backstage, I believe Cody did the actual "announcement".

Well, they did 10k for All-In with basically no TV, pretty much entirely on name alone.

Thing is -- and this is where I agree wholeheartedly with Cornette on something -- there's a difference between doing it once (or even twice) and doing it month after month, and with people to answer to now to boot.

Sure they did but as you said, a one-off is easy.

I also think that was near the height of the Elite. Like this formation is 6 months too late. Kind of like Zack Ryder. He was huge on youtube and got his actual title 6 months too late.

(IMO) They should aim for 4 PPVs a year and try to find a TV deal that gives them exposure. Maybe even put the PPVs in that same TV deal to build the brand. Unfortunately for TV you end up having to do the ROH/NXT style of taping multiple shows for 4 to 6 weeks in 1 night. If they could find a 90 mins slot (if they had the roster) and do bi-weekly tapings then they could keep a buzz going. Not sure you can do that with the ROH/NXT strategy.

The lack of roster depth - to this point at least - is what has me feeling extremely skeptical about the whole venture.

It feels to me to be a case of some egos getting out of touch with reality & forgetting one very key point: to have great matches & be compelling in the ring requires TWO participants (for singles).

Even if they signed Omega tomorrow, who is he going to work? Jericho? Fine, that's 1-2 matches before it's been done. Midcarders? Carrying a broomstick is one thing, but how many times can you do that and have it be interesting for people to watch?

Everyone else on the roster so far (aside perhaps from Page) has shown their ceiling already. They're capable of playing some roles but there isn't a lot beyond upper mid / mid talent there right now.

They don't need one top tier signing, or two, they need a half dozen or more ... and I just don't think that many are out there.

Selling an arena out in Chicago seems a lot easier than selling out an arena in Vegas and Jacksonville. Chicago has a real passionate group of wrestling fans that will show up for just about anything. Not sure how those other cities are in terms of fans.

Jax may be more of a test than Vegas I suspect (depending upon the venue size). Chicago got a LOT of travelers as part of that sellout, Vegas seems a lot more attractive for that than Jax.