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NXT rating for 06/24/2020

NXT had a big win on Wednesday, getting a total of 786,000 viewers, up 40,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show had a 0.19 in the 18-49 demo, landing the show in #26. This was the most-watched NXT since February 19. NXT last beat AEW in viewership on April 15. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

Champion Tessa Blanchard fired from Impact Wrestling

In a major decision taken by Impact Wrestling, the company announced that Impact World champion Tessa Blanchard has been fired and stripped from her title.

The short announcement read, “IMPACT Wrestling has confirmed that it has terminated its relationship with Tessa Blanchard and stripped her of the IMPACT Wrestling World Championship.”

PWInsider.com had the details about the relationship between the two parties that got broken along the way. The website reports that Tessa was supposed to send in taped promos for the June 1 episode of Impact but did not even bother to do it, leaving many fuming as they had to fill in that space with other content that had to be shot.

PWInsider also adds that Impact tried to get Blanchard to drop the title but could not agree on terms and with her contract coming up, they decided instead to fire her.

Blanchard, who won the title in January, was set to take on Eddie Edwards, Trey Miguel, Ace Austin, and Michael Elgin in a five-way match for the Impact World title at Slammiversary.

She won the title in January at the Hard To Kill pay-per-view but then pretty much vanished in March after the coronavirus pandemic hit, refusing to attend any television tapings.

Tessa, the daughter of AEW’s Tully Blanchard, signed with Impact Wrestling in 2018 and became the first female to win the world title of a major wrestling promotion.

WWE producer Adam Pearce tests positive for coronavirus

Another WWE individual came forward by revealing that he has tested positive for coronavirus. Adam Pearce, a WWE producer who works with talent backstage, is the third one who publicly announced that he has COVID-19 along with Renee Young and Kayla Braxton.

“Covid was NOT on my birthday list,” Pearce tweeted, just hours after tweeting “Happy birthday to me.”

Pearce, 42, has been with WWE since 2014 and was one of the producers who remained with the company after the April mass layoffs due to coronavirus.

With Young and Pearce having contact with WWE Superstars and other staff backstage, this could be a very difficult time for WWE and their television production moving forward.

AEW announces full card for two-night Fyter Fest

All Elite Wrestling announced a total of 11 matches which will take place over two episodes of Fyter Fest starting next week on Dynamite.

Five matches will make it on the broadcast on night one, headlined by either the AEW Tag Team or TNT title match while six matches will be on night two, headlined by the AEW World title match. We will be publishing the betting odds if they are made available for this event next week and you can also use the help of the bet Calculator to see your total return and profit.

Night one on July 1 will have Kenny Omega and Hangman Page vs Best Friends for the AEW Tag Team titles, Hikaru Shida vs Penelope Ford for the AEW Women’s title, Cody vs Jake Hager for the TNT title, MJF and Wardlow vs Luchasaurus and Jungle Boy, and Private Party vs Santana and Ortiz.

Night two on July 8 will have Jon Moxley vs Brian Cage for the AEW World title, Chris Jericho vs Orange Cassidy, The Young Bucks and FTR vs Lucha Bros and The Butcher and The Blade, Lance Archer vs Joey Janela, SCU vs The Dark Order, and Nyla Rose in action against an unnamed opponent.

Fyter Fest was originally supposed to take place in London, England and serve as the promotion’s debut in the country. But coronavirus altered all the plans and AEW had to go to plan B. Rather than presenting it as an event on B/R Live like last year, the company opted to instead have it as a two-night event on TNT as special episodes of Dynamite in the latest effort against NXT in the Wednesday night war.

Last year, Fyter Fest was AEW’s second show following the highly successful Double or Nothing pay-per-view and took place from the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida on June 29. The Fyter Fest name was a parody take on Fyre Festival, the fraudulent luxury music festival which was supposed to be held on the island of Exuma in The Bahamas in 2017 and was the subject of a Netflix documentary exposing the fraud behind it by its CEO Billy McFarland.

During Fyter Fest last year, Jon Moxley had his first match under the AEW banner and headlined the show in an unsanctioned match against Joey Janela and the show also featured a fantastic six-man tag team match between Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks against the Lucha Brothers and Laredo Kid.

Kayla Braxton diagnosed with coronavirus for the second time

The Bump host Kayla Braxton has revealed that she has tested positive for coronavirus for the second time after WWE started testing all employees last week.

“Was keeping it quiet but since everyone else is sharing, I feel like it is my responsibility to share this PSA: YOU CAN GET COVID-19 MORE THAN ONCE! I had it back in early March and then thought I was invincible after I recovered. Not true. Dont be dumb like me,” Braxton wrote in a tweet.

Back in March, WWE reported that an on-screen talent was exposed to the virus after contact with two people working in acute health care on the evening of March 26. However the date does not seem to indicate that it was Braxton as she said she was diagnosed the first time in early March.

Multiple individuals in the company tested positive for coronavirus and WWE has now said that they will be conducting swab tests before every television taping.

Madison Square Garden pays tribute to The Undertaker

Following the airing of the last chapter from Undertaker: The Last Ride, Madison Square Garden honored the legendary Undertaker by displaying his photo from what looks like his last MSG appearance on the LED screen at the entrance of the arena with the words “Thank You Taker.”

In a Twitter post showing off the photo, MSG wrote, “Delivering 30 years of legendary moments at The World’s Most Famous Arena. #ThankYouTaker”

During The Last Ride, The Undertaker spoke what it means to wrestle at Madison Square Garden and even got emotional when he made his last appearance at the arena last year. He said walking throughout the halls of MSG, you can see photos of iconic moments which happened there and noted how he’s now in a framed picture next to two of his idols – Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley.

NXT to have Great American Bash themed episodes on July 1 and 8

The next two episodes of NXT which air on July 1 and July 8 will be titled The Great American Bash to play off Independence Day.

The pay-per-view name has not been used in WWE since 2012 when they did a SuperSmackdown using The Great American Bash name on July 3.

WWE resurrected the name in 2004 as a pay-per-view and held a yearly show for six years before stopping it in 2009. The Great American Bash was one of the staple NWA/WCW pay-per-views and was held yearly from 1985 to 2000 with the exception of 1993 and 1994.

The July 1 and 8 episodes of NXT will go head-to-head with AEW’s Fyter Fest.

Renee Young tests positive for coronavirus

WWE personality Renee Young has tested positive for coronavirus and her husband Jon Moxley was subsequently taken off Dynamite as well last night as a precautionary measure.

“Man. What a few days. My show gets cancelled and I get Covid. Wear your masks and wash your hands. Stay safe, everyone,” Young wrote in a small message on social media.

The popular host was at the WWE Performance Center last week and was part of the segment featuring the celebration for AJ Styles’ Intercontinental title win.

In response to the outbreak, WWE has promised to continue doing COVID-19 tests for all the individuals involved in television tapings moving forward.

“WWE will continue COVID-19 testing of its talent, production crew and employees in advance of TV productions for the foreseeable future,” a statement from WWE read.

The company held its first testing last week after one developmental talent who was in the crowd during an NXT taping tested positive. Prior to that, WWE never did swab testing for its personnel and only took temperatures before talent came in to the PC.

Keith Lee vs Adam Cole in title for title set for July 8 NXT

Keith Lee retained his North American title against Finn Balor and Johnny Gargano last night on NXT and will now be facing Adam Cole in a winner-take-all, title-for-title match on the July 8 episode of NXT.

That particular episode will go head-to-head with night two of AEW’s Fyter Fest.

This is the first time that NXT will do a title for title match with Lee the heavy favorite to become the new face of NXT with the both titles.

Lee pinned Finn Balor clean to win the match and then had a stare down with Adam Cole before the show went off the air.

Multiple individuals who were at WWE Performance Center test positive for COVID-19

Ryan Satin of ProWrestlingSheet.com is reporting that multiple people in WWE, including in-ring talent, have tested positive for coronavirus this week.

Satin says that at least three who have been at the WWE Performance Center tested positive in the latest round of testing. More testing is being done to ensure that there are no more infected people in the PC before television tapings resume.

There are no tapings scheduled for this week as everything was taped last week and production resumes on Monday with two episodes of Monday Night Raw. On Tuesday there will be two episodes of Smackdown taped and NXT tapes two episodes on Wednesday. There are no further dates of tapings as per the original schedule past July 1 so far.

In an appearance on The Bump this morning, Kevin Owens confirmed that he decided to stay home and not go to work when a developmental talent tested positive last week. He said he told those in charge that he’s going home and no one flinched or tried any pushback.

WWE tested all their staff and Superstars at the PC on June 16 following their first positive result.

Huge triple threat for North American title headlines NXT on USA tonight

NXT tonight is headlined by a huge triple threat main event match for the NXT North American title.

Headlining the show will be Keith Lee defending his title against Johnny Gargano and Finn Balor with the winner of this match and champion then taking on NXT champion Adam Cole in a winner-take-all title-for-title match on the July 8 episode.

The other two matches so far announced for tonight’s broadcast are Karrion Kross taking on Bronson Reed and Damian Priest versus Cameron Grimes.

QT Marshall off from today’s Dynamite after friend tests positive for coronavirus

QT Marshall has been removed from tonight’s Dynamite after a non-wrestling acquaintance of his tested positive for COVID-19 in the last week. Marshall was supposed to team with Dustin Rhodes to take on FTR, a match which now has been changed to FTR vs SCU.

Marshall’s story was tweeted by AEW President Tony Khan who said that rather than risk bringing QT to their test site, the AEW doctor asked him to stay home and take a COVID test back in GA to protect the rest of them in Jacksonville.

AEW has been testing their talent weekly for coronavirus and has done a better job than WWE in making sure they are not hit with a case.

Jon Moxley back in action on Dynamite tonight

Six matches have been announced for tonight’s Dynamite from Jacksonville, Florida with the AEW World champion Jon Moxley returning to action, however his opponent was not named. Taz will be on commentary for Moxley’s match ahead of Jon’s encounter with his client Brian Cage at the upcoming Fyter Fest.

The other matches include a lumberjack match between Luchasaurus and Wardlow, FTR vs SCU, another tag match with Brodie Lee and Colt Cabana teaming up to take on Joey Janela and Sonny Kiss, Matt Hardy vs Santana of the Inner Circle, and the AEW Women’s champ Hikaru Shida against an unnamed opponent.

This is the last Dynamite before the two-episode Fyter Fest event which will air on TNT as special episodes of Dynamite.

Deonna Purrazzo to wrestle for Impact Knockouts title at Slammiversary 2020

Deonna Purrazzo, who just started with Impact Wrestling, is quickly ascending the ladder and will now be wrestling for the Knockouts title at the upcoming Slammiversary pay-per-view.

The news of Purrazzo taking on Jordynne Grace was announced last night on Impact on ASX TV. For the past two weeks, the former NXT star attacked the Knockouts champion and locked her in the Fujiwara arm bar. Grace tried to get some revenge on Purrazzo after she made her Impact in-ring debut yesterday but Purrazzo managed to escape.

This is the second match announced so far for Slammiversary which takes place on July 18. The other match is the main event featuring Tessa Blanchard defending the Impact World title against Ace Austin, Eddie Edwards, Michael Elgin, and Trey Miguel.

Elgin is currently suspended by Impact Wrestling over inappropriate behavior allegations.

Here are 4 great benefits of playing wrestling

If you are looking for unique sports to try, then you need to check out wrestling. There’s something remarkable that sets this sport apart from the rest. It’s a sport that offers one a great pursuit to be the best they can be at their own pace. That’s not all you get to become your brother’s keeper as you build endurance and learn more about who you are as a person. Anyone can give these sports a try. If you are yet to try it out, you are missing quite a lot. Here are the great benefits of playing wrestling.

Aid in personal development and growth

There comes a time in life when one deals with an identity crisis. However, this isn’t the time to wallow in sadness. Get to use this chance and immerse yourself in wrestling sports. It’s a beautiful chance to reinforce positive personality traits.

Through wrestling, one can boost their self-confidence skills as well as discipline. It’s a chance to adhere to a proper work ethic to attain your goal. Thus, you begin to encourage your personal development by gaining confidence that you can become successful if you put your mind to it.

Self-defense

Another great benefit of this sport is that you get to learn a great deal of self-defense mechanism. Thus, you become in a much better position to untangle yourself from any unpleasant scenario. Through wrestling, you get to learn about various body positioning skills, how to grab an opponent, gain control, and defend an attack. It’s a chance to have an upper edge against an untrained attacker.

Competitiveness 

The beauty of the different sports, including wrestling, is that you get to learn about competitiveness. As you focus on outwitting your opponent, you also get to build resilience within you. Wrestling offers you a chance to go through intense training that enables you to focus on beating each person who’s in your weight class. Through training, you get to become better with each day as you also focus on building endurance. In the spirit of competition, you can also incorporate it in your work life and thus get to boost the productivity of the company.

Mental toughness 

Wrestling is a great chance to become not only physically sturdy but also mentally tough. It enables you to garner a tremendous amount of grit to pick yourself up each time you are down. Thus, you get to develop a strong will to survive and conquer another day. The same also applies while betting on wrestling in various sites including W88. Through all the playing, you get to develop a willful mind always to live and fight another day.

By playing wrestling, you get to become better than you were before. You get an excellent chance to interact with adorable like-minded sports lovers who enjoy plenty of combat sports. To double the fun, you can also bet on wrestling in your free time at various websites, including W88. There’s more to wresting that throwing and blocking punches. It’s a chance to become fit, healthy, shed off some weight, and become a better person as a whole.

 

Sammy Guevera apologizes again in new video and promises he will do better when he’s back

Sammy Guevara, who was suspended by All Elite Wrestling for what he said during a podcast in 2016, uploaded a video to once again apologize to Sasha Banks and anyone who he might have hurt. Sammy said that he will be taking a break from social media as he undergoes sensitivity training as part of his suspension from AEW.

“2016 me is not me today. 2020 me would never say those kinda hurtful things that i said in 2016,” Guevara said, adding that back then he thought it was funny to use shock humor to just pop the room.

A lot has happened in four years he said and learned along the way and he has grown as a person. “I understand now that things I say now will impact people. You will not catch me saying those things now in 2020,” Guevara continued, adding that it’s still no excuse because he said those things and will still pay for what he said.

“Whenever I do come back, I will do better, I will be a better version of myself,” he concluded, before once again apologizing to Banks.

Keith Lee shares personal story of a female spiking his drink at a bar

NXT North American champion Keith Lee, who has been super supportive to those who have been #SpeakingOut, shared a personal story to show that even men have been targets of abuse, including himself.

“Not out of spite. Not because I want to cause anyone harm. Not out of hate or anger. I simply want you to know… #YouAreNotAlone,” Lee wrote in a message on social media.

Lee wrote that he noticed how much courage it takes for victims to share their stories and was willing to share a personal story which very, very few know. Lee said that while living in Texas somewhere between 2016 and 2017, he went to a bar where he would sometimes visit and sing at.

“Eventually I got to sing a song. Afterward, a young lady asked to sit with me. I was alone so I did not mind and welcomed her. We went on to talk about the beauty of music and books. Random philosophies on life. It truly was a pleasant conversation. I am often told I am …. oblivious …. when someone is interested in me,” Lee said.

Lee noted that he did not realize of the interest until she blatantly expressed it and he declined as he was taken at the time. Saying she was disappointed but still pleasant, the female continued to make passes throughout the night, telling him all that she wanted to do with him.

“I politely declined and explained I enjoyed the company, but that chat could not continue. I then offered to buy her a drink as an apology before I headed to the restroom. She declined and said that she’d buy me one because she enjoyed my song so much, that I could go ahead for the bathroom. I expressed gratitude and went to put in a song before heading for the restroom,” he continued.

Lee said that when he returned from the restroom, there were drinks waiting for him and offered to help her sing karaoke.

“Unfortunately…it’s right around here things become extremely fuzzy for me. No matter how much I rack my brain, all I find myself able to recall is struggling to make it to the stage…and stumbling toward a car. After that I recall waking up naked in a hotel room (I don’t even recall if it was my own room), confused and in a panic. I was fortunate enough to have my essentials such as wallet and phone. But…who knows what all I lost,” Lee said.

To this day, he doesn’t know what happened and tried to forget about it ever since. “But I tell this story, so people understand. Anyone can be a victim. ANYONE. It is why I randomly stopped drinking. And why it remains such a rarity to this day.”

Raw rating for 06/22/2020

Monday Night Raw drew an average of 1,922,000 viewers this week, a drop of just 13,000 viewers from last week’s post-Backlash episode.

Hour one started strong with 2,035,000 viewers, then dropped to 1,950,000 viewers in the second hour, before crashing to 1,782,000 viewers in the third hour. It was the first time since April 13 that an hour of Raw did over 2 million viewers.

Raw was #4, #6, and #7 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and was #16 in overall viewership for the night on cable. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)

WWE inks new multi-year broadcast deal with Discovery Italia

WWE and Discovery today announced a new multi-year agreement in Italy beginning Wednesday, July 1 that will make WWE’s weekly flagship programming available exclusively live and on-demand with original U.S. commentary on DPlay PLUS, the OTT premium pay service of Discovery, along with versions featuring Italian commentary on DMAX (Channel 52).

Every week, Dplay PLUS will exclusively air Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown live. NXT will be available on-demand via Dplay PLUS every Thursday morning.

WWE fans can also enjoy Raw, SmackDown and NXT with Italian commentary by Luca Franchini and Michele Posa on Discovery’s free-to-air channel, DMAX. A two-hour version of Raw will premiere on Mondays starting July 13 at 11:15PM and re-run at 10:30AM on Saturdays. SmackDown will air at 11:15PM on Tuesdays and re-run at 10:30AM on Sundays. NXT will air at 12:30PM on Saturdays and re-run at 9:30AM on Sundays.

WWE programming will launch on Dplay PLUS on Wednesday, July 1 with the latest episode of Raw available on-demand from Wednesday, July 1 and SmackDown available from Saturday, July 4 straight after airing live in the US.

“We are thrilled to embark on a new chapter for WWE in Italy as we bring our unique blend of action-packed, family-friendly sports entertainment to Discovery’s free-to-air and premium channels,” said Stefan Kastenmüller, WWE Senior Vice President & Group General Manager. “We are excited that our relationship with Discovery is enhancing the fan experience in Italy with both primetime and family-friendly timeslots.”

“We are pleased to announce this agreement with WWE which is of strategic importance for our group, and will allow us to offer our audience a unique and innovative content proposition: premium content on Dplay PLUS at a very competitive price and WWE highlights on free-to-air on DMAX,” said Alessandro Araimo, Managing Director Discovery Italy. “WWE has conquered a very wide audience and we are confident that our channels and platforms can help to further expand the very large Italian fanbase.”

Raw, SmackDown and NXT with Italian commentary will also be available on-demand via Dplay. WWE’s two popular weekly recap series, Bottom Line and Afterburn, will be available with original commentary from Dplay PLUS.

The agreement with WWE will make the Dplay PLUS premium content offer even more exclusive with the platform subscription price unchanged at 3.99 EUR per month, and at the same time, enriching the free-to-air offer of DMAX, which is already the home of rugby and esports.

WWE’s monthly pay-per-view events, including WrestleMania and SummerSlam, will stream exclusively on WWE Network in Italy.

Android or iOS: what is better for a modern student?

All young people don`t let smartphones off their hands even for a minute: they communicate in social networks, watch videos, and even use it for educational purposes of making their grades and academic performance better. With the help of your smartphone, you can quickly find the best service to help with your assignment, like writing an essay, doing accounting homework, or getting Math Homework Help. When it comes to choosing a smartphone, it becomes tricky: among many new models appearing every month, you should also choose the operating system you like most: iOS or Android.

Perfect OS for college needs

High school seniors and students of colleges and universities are very serious about choosing a smartphone. It is connected not only with preferences about the model or operational system but also with peer pressure. An interesting experiment has taken place in San-Francisco, where one company tested one million teenagers in the US for their college choices. It appeared that students of tech specializations (MIT and engineering schools) prefer Android, while those who are in love with arts and more creative programs, choose Apple production.

According to national statistics, around 54% of users in the US opt for Android devices, while 44% of them choose iOS (2% are pretty fine with Windows OS). When it comes to school students, they tend to use iPhones (around 66% and the most part of it is women) mainly due to peer pressure as these smartphones are considered to be expensive and trendy. In fact, due to this reason, many students choose iOS over Android. However, in an ideal world, students should choose such an important and often used device as a smartphone more carefully, based on their own preferences and convenience. Thus, you should pay attention to:

  1. User-friendly style

We bet you don`t want to buy a phone and then spend plenty of time to understand how to use it. All iPhone models are pretty simple: you only have to tap on the Home button when you want to get on the main screen. Android devices are a bit more complicated as it depends on the model, from Samsung to Huawei. All of them have different sizes of the screen, buttons, features, etc. It differs from brand to brand, and you need to investigate many models before you choose one convenient for you;

  1. Memory

Students use smartphones to download apps, store information, save pictures, music, and video, etc. The memory size matters, and you need to pay attention to this point: if you don`t have enough, the work of your phone slows down. All iPhones have a great size of internal memory, while Android devices cannot state the same. However, almost all of them are equipped with a slot for SD card, which is cheap, easily removable, and gives you unlimited opportunities for extra space. Unfortunately, Apple doesn`t provide this option;

  1. Apps

Your smartphone should be powerful enough to support all modern apps from Angry Birds to some educational stuff. If you have iOS, you need to download apps via the App Store, where it is monitored and approved. It makes iPhones more secure while Google Play on Android is free for everybody and you have no problem with any restrictions;

  1. Price

One of the important factors is the cost where the iPhone is obviously more expensive and thus not quite affordable for students. Add here the cost of the mobile plane, upgrading of storage and battery, and you will see that Android will be a better option.