On Dynamite last night, Chris Jericho officially introduced The Inner Circle, the new faction featuring himself, Sammy Guevara, Jake Hager, Ortiz, and Santana.
The AEW champion introduced each member of his faction one by one and even took on the fans for chanting “we the people” when it was Jake Hager’s time. Jericho told the crowd that “we the people” sucks and it’s dead and buried, blaming WWE creative for the silly catchphrase. That got a huge pop from the Boston crowd.
Later in the night, Jericho teamed up with Guevara to take on Hangman Page and Dustin Rhodes. The heels won with Jericho pinning Dustin but after the match, Cody came out to clean house after The Inner Circle continued to beat on Dustin. His offense was short-lived as Santana and Ortiz, the former LAX members, came out to help their team mates as Jericho took down Cody.
Reinforcements soon came for Cody with MJF coming down with a chair, clocking Ortiz, Santana, Guevara, and Jericho. The Young Bucks also showed up and Dustin came back to try and even the odds as Jericho escaped. But Jericho was met by Darby Allin who came down the ramp on a skateboard to attack him and after all the dust was cleared, Allin posed with the rest of The Elite in the middle of the ring.
It was a wild brawl that sent fans in the stands crazy and a fitting end to another good episode of AEW Dynamite.
Next week’s AEW Dynamite on TNT will feature two title matches as both the AEW World and Women’s championship titles will be on the line.
Darby Allin defeated Jimmy Havoc on last night’s episode, earning himself a title shot against Chris Jericho. Jericho is set to take on Cody at the Full Gear pay-per-view next month. Meanwhile, Dr. Britt Baker also got a title shot against the newly-crowned Women’s champion Riho.
The show will be live from the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the only tickets remaining are those on secondary-market websites starting from $4 for the upper level seats. Ringside seats start from $96.
Former NXT champion Tommaso Ciampa will be returning to action next week on NXT after almost eight months away.
Ciampa vacated the NXT title in March 2019 with the planned match against Gargano at NXT Takeover: New York then switched to Gargano vs Adam Cole. Since March, Ciampa underwent neck surgery and was told not to wrestle again but Ciampa defied all the odds and is now fully healed.
Ciampa will take on Angel Garza, who made his NXT debut in June participating in the Breakout Tournament and in August he wrestled on an episode of 205 Live.
Also announced for next week are Keith Lee taking on Dominik Dijakovic and Pete Dunne vs Damian Priest.
This question has been plaguing fans and organizations themselves. The World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) has been doing its best to keep the sport in tip-top shape, despite challenges, particularly insofar as viewership and live attendance was concerned.
Let’s face it – the 90s were the sweet spot for the sport. Just like you would play roulette games online and have fun for a while, your fortunes may go up, or go down. Television rights deals were raining left and right and one could say that the segment definitely had a bright future ahead of it. Plain and simple. Yet, the subdued climate for TV right deals may now be showing signs of improvement.
As a result of fresh partnership with Comcast and Fox, RAW and SmackDown are back in the limelight, and this is definitely good news. Fox and Comcast have agreed to five-year partnerships with the organization, which is good sign for the sport – at least in the foreseeable future.
Not least of all, AEW’s Dynamite aired on Wednesday. The All Elite Wrestling show on TNT definitely came on top and beat WWE’s NXT, showing that competition in the sector is going to be taken seriously.
As with any new product there has been a lot of mistrust as to whether the creators can deliver on the desired quality. Judging by the Wednesday production, however, our weeks are going to be quite fun from here on. Back to talking numbers, however, wrestling – as a sport – has quite a bit of competition.
The National Basketball Association (NBA) and basketball in general beat it by quite a bit in terms of viewership – and there are no inappropriate jokes in the NBA. Netflix also seems to be claiming far more of the viewership pie.
Yet, the WWE has pushed on. Challenges have been raining in left and right – weighing the organization down at every possible turn. Yet, the company has found a way to overcome those obstacles – establishing itself on social media, an interesting development.
Things Are Good Well, But Why Are Numbers Down?
And so, here’s the paradox that gambling is facing. Even though most subscriber numbers have been going up, why then attendance and merchandise sales dropping down? With these numbers falling steadily, the reasons for concern are not quite overcome.
Not only that, but talented WWE entertainers are also choosing another career as well. Chris Jericho, for example, has decided to bid the WWE goodbye and hop on the AEW bandwagon. Why trust AEW? There’s absolutely no reason for Jericho to be doing that, but one thing is apparent – the organization has come to a point where change is sorely needed.
One of the big hopes is that the WWE may be focusing on overseas markets as well. In fact, in the 1990s, the company was broadcasting its offer around the world without fear of ever slowing down. Then it just went bust – for whatever reason.
People started spending time on their smartphones, watching shows on demand and many other factors came to sort of dethrone wrestling.
Episode two of season nine of Total Divas, titled All is Fair in Love and War, did 261,000 viewers, up 9,000 viewers from last week’s season premiere. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
There is a changing of the guard in the Cruiserweight division as Lio Rush became the new NXT Cruiserweight champion last night on the NXT episode on USA Network.
For the second week in a row, NXT opened with a title match and just like last week, the match did not disappoint. Rush won the title after a big frog splash and received a standing ovation from the crowd who chanted “Lio, Lio.” NXT General Manager William Regal wrapped the NXT Cruiserweight title around Rush’s waist but Gulak stepped back in the ring and snatched it away. He then handed over the title to Rush and the two shook hands. “The man of the hour is soaring as the NXT Cruiserweight kingpin,” Ranallo said on commentary.
Lio returned to NXT during the first episode on USA Network after disappearing from WWE TV after WrestleMania 35.
Rush becomes the 13th different WWE Superstar to hold the Cruiserweight title in 14 reigns. Only Enzo Amore managed to win the title twice. Gulak was champion for 108 days, winning the title from Tony Nese during the Stomping Grounds Kickoff show back in June. He had the fourth longest reign with the Cruiserweight title.
NXT will try to regain some of its viewers back tonight after losing week one of the new Wednesday night war with All Elite Wrestling.
Three matches have been announced for tonight’s show from Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida. The NXT Cruiserweight title will be on the line as champion Drew Gulak will take on number one contender Lio Rush. The NXT North American champion Roderick Strong will be wrestling Isaiah Scott, the man formerly known as Shane Strickland on the independent scene. And last but not least, Japanese sensation Kushida will be taking on the WWE United Kingdom champion Walter.
NXT airs on USA Network starting at 8PM ET. Tonight’s show will not have limited commercials and a 15-minute overrun so it will be on the same playing field as AEW’s Dynamite.
During this morning’s episode of The Bump, host Kayla Braxton published a statement from WWE referee Rod Zapata regarding the ending of the Hell In A Cell main event.
Zapata, who was in charge of the match, explained why he stopped the match, a decision which sparked an outrage among WWE fans inside the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento and those watching on the WWE Network. “With Bray motionless, and Seth clearly doing whatever it was going to take to win the match… I had to think of the competitor’s safety and at that moment, I did what I thought was best,” Zapata said.
The finish was met with an overwhelming negative reaction even on the WWE Watch Along live show where X-Pac wondered how can you get DQ’ed in a Hell In A Cell match. WWE later clarified that the match had a referee stoppage and not a disqualification ending.
The Bump is WWE’s newest online show hosted by Kayla Braxton and filmed live at the WWE Headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut every Wednesday where several topics are discussed.
Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com is reporting that WWE Hall of Famer Edge was in Pittsburgh this week on “WWE business,” and the location raised some eyebrows as Pittsburgh is where WWE medical chief Dr. Joseph Maroon is headquartered.
There have been rumors that Edge, real name Adam Copeland, is getting ready for his return to the ring although he denied these talks on Twitter last week. At SummerSlam in Toronto, Edge delivered his first spear since he retired on Elias during the Kickoff show, surprising the thousands in attendance.
Edge had not been allowed to do anything physical every time he appeared on WWE television and the mere fact that he was given the okay to hit the spear says a lot. During the E&C podcast after SummerSlam, Edge said that he probably could another match with the company.
“To be perfectly honest, I think I could do a match tomorrow. I might be blown up but I’d be okay,” Edge told Christian and his listeners back in August. But he said he knows that WWE medical staff would never clear him considering his neck issues. “It is what it is, right?”
Edge has also recently left his co-hosting duties at the Edge & Christian Pod of Awesomeness citing family commitments.
Wrestling is such a goofy pastime, some would say. Yet, it has been around for years now, and it’s returned on TNT with the Dynamite show. The two-hour national prime time broadcast is designed as an ambitious experiment, merging showmanship and the love for seeing people punched and hit with chairs together.
Of course, it is mostly a show, and while it’s one of the most ambitious illusions out there, there is a following steadfast build around the entire activity. TNT last tried to have a prime-time show back in 1995. Since that time, nobody has attempted to restore the sport to its former glory. Well, we say nobody, but there have been many wrestling games since! But where can you find these cool wrestling games? Well, it’s simple. Just visit https://holymolycasinos.com and find the casinos with the best gaming catalogs out there, including the ones that feature Lucha Libre.
Yet, TNT is back at it, and the Dynamite returned on October 2 under the critical and somewhat captivated gazes of hundreds of thousands in front of the main screen and live from the One Arena in Washington, D.C.
Wrestling as a Cultural Phenomenon
Believe it or not, wrestling is a cultural phenomenon. In the United States, the activity has been completely reinvented as showmanship, but then again – isn’t that what America does? We take something that you can call mundane and transform it into a glitz-and-glamour-covered end-product that is ready for consumption.
There haven’t been any complaints so far. Yet, the sport did indeed find itself declining in overall popularity. And for years now, the industry has been fighting back against more popular forms of entertainment.
Before Netflix and HBO made it possible to stream quality shows online, many of us would just switch the shows and watch. There was hype; there was anticipation. Not much of this remains today, although the fan base remains strong.
Of course, some of us remained utterly committed to the sport – no questions asked there. And our loyalty is simple to explain –it is a high entertainment cultural phenomenon, and even if it’s somewhat silly on occasion, it’s still a career-trampoline, a cool pastime and the ability to just let go and be amazed on time.
Other Places You Will Find Wrestling
Wrestling has spawned so many various activities – for ‘The Rock,’ it started his acting career. For ambitious actors with the athletic aptitude, it has been an immensely fun way to make a living. Yet you can find this event all over the place.
Even online gaming with games such as Lucha Libre and Lucha Libre 2 offers you a chance to be amazed and become a wrestler yourself, even momentarily!
When we look back at wrestling, the activity definitely stood high in its primer. Today, the numbers are a little more challenging. The old faces are not going to be featured in the Dynamite, so there’s no more Kane, Rikishi or Stone Cold for you, but then again – we can’t wait to see the new faces either!
AEW returns for week two of Dynamite tonight with a show live from The Agganis Arena in Boston, Massachusetts. Follow last week’s very successful debut, AEW is looking to increase, or at least retain, the 1.4 million viewers who tuned in to watch the show.
Five matches have been announced so far for tonight’s broadcast, a show which will be headlined by Chris Jericho and Sammy Guevara taking on Hangman Page and Dustin Rhodes. Other matches taking place are The Young Bucks vs Private Party in the AEW Tag Team title tournament, Jon Moxley vs Shawn Spears, Darby Allin vs Jimmy Havoc with the winner getting an AEW title shot next week, and a women’s tag team match featuring Riho and Britt Baker taking on Emi Sakura & Bea Priestley.
Monday Night Raw drew an average of 2,334,000 viewers for the post-Hell In A Cell pay-per-view show, down 235,000 viewers from last week’s season premiere.
Hour one started with 2,443,000 viewers, followed by 2,330,000 viewers for the second hour, and ending the night with 2,230,000 viewers. Raw was faced with stiff competition from Monday Night Football on ESPN which did 11.12 million viewers and the MLB game on TBS which did 2.4 million.
The show was #5, #6, and #9 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic and #12 in overall viewership for the night on cable. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
WWE will be holding a press conference on Friday before Smackdown at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event will stream live starting at 3PM ET on WWE Network, WWE.COM, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.
Scheduled to appear are Triple H, WWE champion Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman, Cain Velasquez, Rey Mysterio, Braun Strowman, and Tyson Fury.
The belief is that two matches – Lesnar vs Velasquez and Strowman vs Fury – will be officially announced for the Crown Jewel pay-per-view on October 31 in Saudi Arabia.
The Crown Jewel show is on a Thursday and WWE has yet to announce how they are going to tackle taping Friday Night Smackdown with most of the roster away.
This week’s Smackdown and next week’s Raw will be draft episodes.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan expressed his wish to have a retirement match, saying he couldn’t live with himself if his last time in the ring was in TNA.
The Hulkster told Arash Markazi of the LA Times that he talked to Vince McMahon and told him that if this back surgery can get him fixed, he would get in the best shape of his life and then the two are going to sit down and talk about him having one last retirement match.
“I’d love for it to be against Vince,” he said. “I had such a great time with him in the ring at WrestleMania 19. I had no idea what to expect from him, but he’s a great bad guy. His timing is great. I loved wrestling him, but everything he does hurts. When you’re in the ring with someone and they’re hurting you, you kind of pinch them on the wrist, and the whole match I was doing that to Vince. I was like, ‘Vince, take it easy!’ Everything he does hurts, but I’d like to get in the ring with him one more time for my last match. That would be perfect.”
Hogan will next be seen on a WWE pay-per-view at Crown Jewel on Halloween as he leads a team of five WWE Superstars to take on Ric Flair’s team in Saudi Arabia.
The Big Show is a busy man lately as apart from being the lead on a show currently filming for Netflix, he was also announced today as the subject of a new reality TV show titled Big Show vs The World: A Giant Abroad.
The show will be produced by WWE Studios and Thinkfactory Media, an ITV America company.
Through his extensive world travels with WWE, Big Show has collected a lifetime of unusual stories filled with unexplained natural occurrences, local enigmas and fascinating people. Big Show vs. The World: A Giant Abroad will follow the larger-than-life WWE Superstar as he travels back to these locations and indulges his lifelong passion for exploring the strange and unknown.
Each self-contained episode will feature Big Show venturing to a new exotic area, where he’ll team up with a local guide and dive head first into a native mystery or legend. Navigating the difficulty of travel and the extreme, sometimes awkward situations he encounters with his signature self-deprecating sense of humor, Big Show will do whatever it takes to unearth every quirky and shocking detail during his adventures into the bizarre.
“Big Show brings so many different layers to a project like this; it’s a dream scenario for us as producers,” said Thinkfactory CEO Adam Reed. “He blends his fierce intelligence and curiosity with an unexpected, one-of-a-kind wit, and his intimidating physical stature is offset by his surprisingly disarming personality. We’re ecstatic to be working with him and the WWE Studios team and can’t wait for the journeys ahead.”
“For more than two decades, Big Show’s magnetic personality has inspired fans around the world, and in this new series, he will be able to meet the people and explore the places that have played a pivotal role in his journey as a WWE Superstar,” said Susan Levison, SVP and Head of WWE Studios. “We are thrilled to be bringing this show to life with our partners at Thinkfactory who are proven winners in the unscripted television genre.”
“I won’t guarantee we’ll solve every mystery, but we’ll explore every strange detail, chase every bizarre lead, and meet the incredible characters involved in pursuit of the truth,” said Big Show.
PWInsider.com is reporting that Sasha Banks has been placed on the sidelines following an unspecified injury resulting from her Hell In A Cell match against Becky Lynch on Sunday.
While there is no word how serious the injury is, speculation is that it’s pretty bad and she will not be medically cleared for a while.
Dave Meltzer of the Observer added to the story that WWE is keeping the severity of the injury under wraps for some reason and she will be missing ring time for sure.
Banks made her WWE return in August after SummerSlam following an absence of four months. She was unsuccessful in both her attempts to capture the Raw Women’s title from Becky Lynch.
Total Divas airs tonight starting at 9PM ET on E! with episode two of season nine titled All is Fair in Love and War.
The synopsis for tonight’s episode reads, “Madly in love, Carmella’s world is shattered when her new relationship is exposed and implicated as an affair all over the internet. Sonya wins back her ex-girlfriend just in time to celebrate Pride, where Sonya will be featured on her very own float in the parade, however, an injury in the ring wreaks havoc on her plans. Natalya seeks to live on in her dad’s legacy, when she is left without a tag team partner for the first-ever Women’s Tag Team Championship match and Ronda Rousey takes it upon herself to help when Natalya starts to question where she belongs.”
Undefeated British boxer Tyson Fury got physical with Braun Strowman last night on Monday Night Raw after the two had a face off during the main event of the show.
After both exchanged some trash talking and warnings, Fury told Strowman, “I’m the heavyweight champion of the world. How many titles have you won?” That was the last of the talking as Fury then pushed Strowman and Strowman picked him up and rammed him into the turnbuckles.
Security then swamped the ring trying to keep the two apart but Fury and Strowman got rid of the security. Eventually, several Superstars came out to keep the two apart but barely did a better job than the security guards, failing to keep them away from each other multiple times.
Interviewed backstage immediately after the melee by Charly Caruso, Strowman said, “I tell you what, Tyson Fury is one tough son of a bitch but he’s gonna get these damn hands before it’s all over and done with.” Strowman said he’s not going to apologize because “he doesn’t play that crap” and then stormed back to the ring for another round.
Tonight’s Monday Night Raw will feature the fallout from Hell In A Cell and things could get ugly following that main event finish.
Matches announced so far are Natalya vs Lacey Evans in a last woman standing match, Robert Roode and Dolph Ziggler vs The Viking Raiders, and The Kabuki Warriors vs Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch in a champions showcase match.
Lynch and Flair will also be the special guests on Miz TV. Apart from all this, another segment was announced which will feature undefeated British boxer Tyson Fury getting an open mic to address Braun Strowman and what happened on Friday during Smackdown.
Charlotte Flair became a 10-time women’s champion last night at Hell In A Cell, beating fellow Four Horsewomen member Bayley to reach the milestone reign.
Flair won her first title on the main roster in September 2015, beating Nikki Bella for the Divas title, ending Bella’s reign of 301 days as champion. In April of next year, the title was retired and it was renamed to the WWE Women’s title before changing names again to the Raw Women’s title following the brand split.
Over a six month period starting in July, Flair traded the title with Sasha Banks a couple of times, first losing it to Sasha on Raw, then regaining it at SummerSlam. Two months later, Charlotte lost it to Sasha again on Raw but just 27 days later, Flair regained it at Hell In A Cell. The following month in November, Sasha Banks won the title again but third reign as Raw Women’s champion ended in two weeks as Charlotte won it at Roadblock in December. Flair’s fourth title reign came to an end in February 2017 on Raw in Las Vegas courtesy of Bayley.
Charlotte moved to Smackdown in 2017 and her first Smackdown Women’s title win came in November. She lost it to Carmella two days after WrestleMania in April 2018 and regained it in August at SummerSlam. Flair lost the title to Becky Lynch in September at Hell In A Cell. Her third reign with the Smackdown title came in an episode of Smackdown in March 2019, beating Asuka to go and headline WrestleMania with Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch. Flair – and Rousey – lost their titles at WrestleMania 35 to Becky. A month and a half later, Charlotte beat Becky at Money In The Bank but her win lasted just a few minutes because Bayley cashed in her MITB briefcase and took the title away from Flair. Yesterday’s win at Hell In A Cell was Flair’s fifth Smackdown Women’s title win and her tenth overall.
Apart from the four Raw and five Smackdown titles, Flair also won the NXT Women’s title once, defeating Natalya in 2014 at NXT Takeover.
