Tonight’s episode of Total Divas will go head-to-head with Extreme Rules, kicking off at 9PM EST on E!
The episode, number seven, is titled “Flirting with Fandango” and the main storyline will be Summer Rae asking Fandango out on a date. Other story lines will cover Eva Marie getting more news regarding her health and Ariane and Nikki helping out Natalya.
Whenever the show went on at the same time with a WWE pay-per-view it always suffered in terms of viewership so it will be interesting if the trend continues tonight.
Live from the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey, WWE presents Extreme Rules on pay-per-view and WWE Network. The full card is as follows:
Daniel Bryan vs Kane in an extreme rules match for the WWE World Heavyweight title; Evolution vs The Shield in a six-man tag team match; Bray Wyatt vs John Cena in a steel cage match; Paige vs Tamina Snuka for the WWE Divas title; Big E vs Bad News Barrett for the WWE Intercontinental title; Alexander Rusev vs Xavier Woods and R-Truth in a two-on-one handicap match; Jack Swagger vs Cesaro vs Rob Van Dam in a triple threat match; and El Torito vs Hornswoggle in a WeeLC match as part of the pre-show.
The word going around is that the new season of Tough Enough which was announced earlier this week during the conference call with investors will be actually taped at the WWE Performance Center.
Previous seasons were recorded at the TRAX training facility in Stamford, Connecticut, and the last season was held in Simi Valley, California.
Rather than WWE holding casting calls for potential contestants it’s also believed that a group will be picked from the current NXT roster which isn’t being used on television.
WWE Performance Center head coach and former Tough Enough coach himself Bill DeMott wrote on Twitter that to say he’s waiting for a call for the show “would be an understatement.”
PWInsider.com has reported that WWE has purchased the Mid-Atlantic Wrestling tape library from George Pantas, who shot and owned the original footage from the Jim Crockett Promotions events.
In an article written for the Norfolk Navy Flagship, Pantas said that negotiations with WWE were very lengthy however at the end of the day, WWE made him feel like he was the million dollar man.
He described the talks with WWE Archivist Ben Brown, Director of Asset Management George Kapetanakos, Media Content Manager Matt Brucatto, and Executive Vice President of Talent & Live Events, Paul “HHH” Levesque and his trip to WWE’s world headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.
“With limo rides from my house to the airports and back, to putting me up at the Hilton, to tours of the WWE TV studios, warehouse and cooperate and finally being interviewed for the WWE Network for over an hour by Tavis Tenney in order to tell my behind the scene stories of my footage and being with the wrestlers, I was made to feel like the million dollar man,” Pantas said.
Pantas was also WWE’s guest at WrestleMania XXX, his first WrestleMania ever.
WWE holds over 100,000 hours of wrestling footage from different wrestling promotions dating back from the 1930s.
Creative odds and bets for tomorrow’s Extreme Rules pay-per-view have been published by Betfair Casino.
These odds can obviously change if there are strong betting with lots of money leaning towards one way, similar to what happened when Undertaker was first clear favorite to keep his streak at WrestleMania and then all of a sudden massive money was coming in on Lesnar before the event.
The favorites to win are El Torito, Bray Wyatt, Paige, The Shield, Wade Barrett, Rusev, Cesaro, and Daniel Bryan.
Speaking to British-based website Digital Spy, former WWE champion Chris Jericho said that he knows how CM Punk feels at the moment because he went through the same phase in 2005.
“The only difference was I left when my contract was up, but I disappeared too, because I just was over it. I couldn’t take it anymore, I wasn’t interested in being there, I was getting miserable,“ Jericho said.
The lead Fozzy singer said that the match between Shawn Michaels and John Cena at WrestleMania 23 “inspired” him to get back in the ring eventually.
When asked about the Undertaker’s streak ending, Jericho said he loved it as it was a legitimate shock which got everybody talking. He added that Brock Lensar was the right guy for that day and if you’re going for credibility and believability, Lesnar was the perfect choice.
“I would have hated it – hated it – if Undertaker would have retired without losing. I think that would have been a horrible way to go, I’m really happy that he lost The Streak,” Jericho said.
The WWE App won a Webby Award through a fan voting of the People’s Voice Award in the Sports Mobile & Apps category. WWE will be honored at the Webby Awards ceremony on Monday, May 19, at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.
With more than 11 million downloads in 220 countries, the WWE App beat out The Nike SB App, Visa 360 Cam and NCAA March Madness Live 2013 for the highly coveted fan award.
The WWE App recently won a Shorty Award in the Best Branded Mobile App category as well.
During the conference call held today to talk about the Q1 2014 earnings, it was revealed that Tough Enough is making a comeback on the WWE Network, and the show immediately started trending on Twitter.
The show will be coming later this year along with another season of WWE Countdown and the Monday Night War program, another original show. No information was given as to who will be part of the new Tough Enough.
Tough Enough originally aired on MTV for three seasons and made its debut in 2003. The fourth season of the show was part of Smackdown and was titled $1,000,000 Tough Enough, while the fifth aired on USA Network in 2011.
Al Snow, Jacqueline, Tori, and Tazz were the trainers for the first season and then Hardcore Holly, Chavo Guerrero, and Ivory joined Snow for the second series. Tough Enough III had Al Snow, Bill DeMott, and Ivory as trainers and season 5 had Booker T, Bill DeMott, Trish Stratus, and host Steve Austin.
None of the people who won the show are currently employed by WWE as an active wrestler. Season one was won by Maven Huffman and Nidia Guenard, season two was won by Jackie Gayda and Linda Miles, season three was won by John Hennigan and Matt Cappotelli, season four was won by Daniel Puder, and season five was won by Andy Leavine.
Perhaps the most successful to come out of the Tough Enough competition were John Morrison, who won season two, The Miz, runner-up to season four, Ryback, also part of season four, WWE Diva Cameron who was the first one out in season five, and Matt Morgan, who was part of season two. Josh Mathews is part of the WWE broadcast team and was also a competitor on Tough Enough. Chris Nowinski and Maven also had decent runs from season one.
By the time the first quarter ended on March 31, 2014, the WWE Network had 495,000 subscribers which generated $4.4 million in subscription revenue.
From that date till the day after WrestleMania on April 7, WWE managed to attract an additional 172,287 subscribers which adds over $1.6 million more in revenue that will be recorded in the Q2 earnings release.
On April 7, WWE announced that it had 667,287 subscribers in total to their WWE Network.
The $4.4 million in network subscription revenue was partially offset by a $1.3 million decline in pay-per-view revenue. Pay-per-view revenue declined 9% to $13.8 million driven by a 10% decline in buys for the Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber events.
Pay-per-view revenue will take an even bigger hit in Q2 2014 as starting with WrestleMania, these events started airing on the WWE Network.
Five of the eight money-making departments within WWE registered an increase in revenue when compared to the same quarter of last year.
The five winners are WWE Network and pay-per-view which saw an increase of 15% to $18.4 million from $16.0 million in the prior year quarter; TV revenues increased 8% to $40.6 million from $37.7 million; Home entertainment increased to $10.5 million from $7 million; Live event increased to $21.7 million from $21 million, a 3% increase; WWEShop.com was up 20% to $4.2 million from $3.5 million; and WWE Studios registered $4.3 million versus the $1.9 million.
The three departments which made less money are Digital Media, down to $6.7 million from $7.1 million; Licensing was down $10 million, now at $14 million from $24 million in the prior year quarter; and venue merchandised was down 2%, standing at $5 million from $5.1 million.
WWE today announced financial results for its first quarter ended March 31, 2014. For the quarter, the Company reported a Net loss of $8.0 million compared to Net income of $3.0 million in the first quarter last year. The decline in Net income was driven by the Company’s launch the WWE Network and lower results from its video game licensing business.
“For the quarter, our earnings reflected the launch of our WWE Network, which delivers unparalleled depth of programming, ease of use and value to our fans. With almost 670,000 WWE Network subscribers in the U.S. and nearly 400,000 domestic pay-per-view buying homes for WrestleMania 30, we are confident that we will reach our goal of 1 million subscribers by the end of 2014,” stated Vince McMahon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “To drive WWE Network subscriber growth, we are highly focused on further developing our programming, expanding distribution platforms and executing customer acquisition campaigns. The expansion of WWE Network in the U.S. and international markets will provide a platform for long-term growth over the coming years.”
The Shareholders Foundation issued a press release today announcing that an investigation on behalf of investors of WWE over potential securities law violations and on certain directors and officers in connection of financial statements has been launched.
The investigation by a law firm focuses on possible claims on behalf of purchasers of the securities of WWE concerning whether a series of statements by World Wrestling Entertainment regarding its business, its prospects and its operations were materially false and misleading at the time they were made.
WWE quickly issued a short statement regarding the press release saying, “The claim that Shareholders Foundation is allegedly investigating has absolutely no substance or merit.”
WWE will be releasing the Q1 2014 results tomorrow.
PWInsider.com is reporting that three NXT Superstars and one Diva were released today.
The four unfortunate to receive the pink slip are Mason Ryan, Oliver Grey, Danny Burch, and Shaul Guerrero.
Mason Ryan was part of WWE’s main roster in 2011 and aligned himself with the Nexus when CM Punk headed the group. He last appeared on WWE television at Survivor Series that same year and last week wrestled Tyson Kidd on NXT.
Grey and Burch never made it to the main roster and rarely appeared on NXT episodes. Both of them are British wrestlers.
Shaul Guerrero is the daughter of Vickie and the late Eddie Guerrero. She recently returned to NXT after first asking for her release at the end of 2012. She returned a year later to NXT but this time her return only last a few months.
AT&T U-Verse has also dropped Extreme Rules from its pay-per-view schedule with their website only listing WrestleMania XXX as the sole WWE event being offered by the company.
Events for May currently advertised are the Mayweather vs Maidana boxing, Bellator’s Alvarez vs Chandler III, and UFC 173: Barao vs Dillashaw.
Extreme Rules has already been dropped by Dish Network and DirecTV in protest over the unfair deal of the WWE Network. Pay-per-view and cable providers get 50% of the revenue generated by WWE PPV events.
On RAW, WWE announcers told fans that both Dish and DirecTV would not be carrying the show and urged fans to subscribe to the WWE Network.
The children who made up the choir on Monday Night RAW in the creepy opening segment with Cena and the Wyatts were students from the Ladue High School, Shaw Visual Performing Arts in the St. Louis Public School District, and the St. Charles County Children’s Choir.
The kids sang “He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands” to John Cena and then a fifth-grader from Shaw Visual Performing Arts did the solo.
The appearance of the kids got them some publicity on local news in St. Louis and the segment was partly spoiled by the Laude Foundation Twitter account which tweeted a message to Bray Wyatt saying that their choir is “fired up” to sing the song.
Monday Night RAW did a 3.3 rating this week with an average viewership of 4,610,000, up 471,000 from last week’s show.
The first hour did 4,512,000, followed by 4,667,000 in the second hour, and finally 4,652,000 in the third and final hour. (Ratings credit: PWInsider.com)
WWE announced today that that the WWE Network app has been added to the Xbox One console after several reports on Twitter from different users said that the app was available to download.
WWE has said before that the Network would be coming to the Playstation 4 in the Summer with no proper date given.
The company had several issues with the Xbox 360 app which left a lot of angry users frustrated that they can’t log in or else when it works not all footage was available. Eventually WWE and Microsoft sorted out the issue earlier last month.
With the addition of Playstation 4, the WWE Network is now available on Kindle HD, Android devices, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, Roku, Xbox 360, as well as PC and Mac browsers. Smart TVs are expected to get support for the WWE Network in the Summer.
Two new matches were announced for Extreme Rules this coming Sunday on last night’s RAW.
The first match is El Torito vs Hornswoggle which will be part of the pre-show. The match is being called a WeeLC match, we guess a TLC match for vertically challenged people.
The second match, which will be part of the actual pay-per-view, is a three-way match between Jack Swagger, Cesaro, and Rob Van Dam.
Extreme Rules will air on the WWE Network and select cable and PPV providers. Dish Network and DirecTV will not be airing the pay-per-view.
Tickets for the Survivor Series went on pre-sale yesterday and will continue to be on pre-sale till this coming Friday at 10PM CDT.
Ticket prices are $25, $50, $80, $100, $350, and $500 for ringside. Prices do not include taxes and other fees which will be added on before check out. To purchase tickets you will need to use the password SURVIVOR.
General public can get their hands on the tickets starting August 23 starting at 10AM CDT.
The show will take place at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri on Sunday, November 23.
