Tickets for the first AEW on TNT show will go on sale on Friday, August 2 at Noon ET on Ticketmaster.com.
The show will be taking place from the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. and tickets are priced $20, $35, $50, $75, $90, and $250. The expensive $250 tickets will be ringside and will also include a commemorative chair to mark this historic day for the company. These prices exclude the usual additional fees that come along with every ticket purchase on Ticketmaster.
The weekly AEW show will start on Wednesday, October 2 at 8PM ET. No official name has been announced although AEW has trademarked Wednesday Night Dynamite.
Florida-based CLJNews.com is carrying a story about WWE Superstar Lacey Evans joining Montel Williams on the show Military Makeover to help transform the home of the wife of a fallen military individual.
The subject of the episode will be Cody, whose husband, Sergeant Daniel J. Patron, was killed in Sangin Valley, Afghanistan in 2011. Sergeant Patron earned The Purple Heart and The Bronze Star Medal for his heroic service. Last October, her house was severely impacted by the natural disaster, Hurricane Michael last month.
Evans, a former U.S. Marine herself, helped with the remodeling of the house along with several partners and the community. Filming ended on Saturday, July 20 with the big reveal of the finished home and hired the Olathe pest control.Pest control is necessary because rodents and insects carry diseases, infest your kitchens and bedrooms, and bite you or your pets. The purpose of removing any kind of pest from your home, garage, or yard is to keep you safe and healthy. For example, rodents can leave feces on or near food they find in your kitchen.A combination of half apple cider vinegar (although normal vinegar works just as well) and half water in a spray bottle works perfectly to repel those pests. This concoction can be sprayed around the perimeter of your home, on the legs of tables that have food served on them or even around a screen house or tent.
This episode will air on Lifetime, August 30 at 7:30AM and can also be viewed on militarymakeover.tv.
NXT star Karen Q broke her leg at a non-televised NXT live event in Atlanta, Georgia yesterday while wrestling in a tag team match teaming up with Bianca Belair to take on Rhea Ripley and Reina Gonzales.
After the referee made the “X” hand signal to notify backstage of a legit injury, the match was wrapped up quickly and Q was helped to the back by officials.
In a post on her social media, she wrote that will be unable to finish this current NXT road trip because of her broken leg. “I’m so proud of the matches I had this weekend and I’m grateful to have the best family, friends and coworkers! My leg is broken, but I’ll be back! Thanks to all who have reached out and showed me love,” she wrote.
Born and raised in Queens, New York, the former gymnast signed with WWE earlier this year after participating in the second Mae Young Classic tournament last Summer. She previously worked for Ring of Honor and other independent promotions before appearing briefly for Impact Wrestling.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reported in the latest issue that WWE officials met with their counterparts from Dragon Gate and World Wonder Ring Stardom promotions during their short tour in Japan earlier this month.
Dragon Gate features mostly wrestlers from Ultimo Dragon’s wrestling school, focusing mostly on the junior heavyweight style. The promotion was founded in 2004 and also had the spinoffs Dragon Gate USA and Dragon Gate UK, but those two promotions have folded.
World Wonder Ring Stardom is a women-only promotion in Japan founded in 2010. Kairi Sane and Io Shirai are two of the alumni of Stardom and over the years, the company has welcomed some of the top women in professional wrestling to wrestle for them.
WWE is planning to open several more localized NXT brands with Performance Centers around the world and Japan seems to be one of their next targets considering how popular pro wrestling is in the country.
Two matches for Raw and three matches for Smackdown have already been announced for this coming week’s television.
On Raw, former Universal champion Seth Rollins is set to take on Dolph Ziggler while Raw Women’s champion Becky Lynch goes one on one against Alexa Bliss. A “Samoan Summit” – whatever that is – between Roman Reigns and Samoa Joe is also on the cards.
Meanwhile over at the blue brand, The New Day will take on Drew McIntyre and Elias and if Balor is cleared, he will take on Dolph Ziggler. The WWE Women’s Tag Team champions The IIconics will also wrestle Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville in a non-title match.
Finn Balor missed the Smackville WWE Network event after WWE medical did not clear him to compete. Balor was supposed to face Shinsuke Nakamura for the Intercontinental title during the broadcast.
At the start of the show, commentators Tom Philips and David Otunga spoke about why Balor wasn’t there but did not specify what injury or illness kept Balor out of action. Nakamura wanted the match to be awarded to him via forfeit but Ali came out instead and challenged Nakamura for the title. The Japanese Superstar retained the IC title after pinning Ali with the Kinshasa.
Balor is supposed to take on Dolph Ziggler on Smackdown this Tuesday although at this point it’s not clear if he will be allowed to wrestle.
In the other matches on the Smackville show, Kevin Owens defeated Elias, and Kofi Kingston retained the WWE title in a triple threat match when he defeated Samoa Joe and Dolph Ziggler.
WWE will be airing a special presentation on the WWE Network tonight titled Smackville, a one-hour live broadcast from the live event in Nashville, Tennessee.
The broadcast will be joining the show in progress starting at 9PM ET and will have two matches – Shinsuke Nakamura vs Finn Balor for the Intercontinental title and Kofi Kingston vs Samoa Joe vs Dolph Ziggler in a triple threat for the WWE title. A live performance from Elias is also on the cards and will air as well during the broadcast.
This will be similar to what the company did several months ago for The Shield’s final match together where they joined live during the non-televised event and aired a couple of matches and segments as well.
With Smackdown airing from the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennessee on Tuesday, it’s only natural to welcome back WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler back on the show.
But Lawler, who last appeared at the Raw Reunion show doing commentary for a match, will have other things to handle this Tuesday: his talk show segment The King’s Court will make a one night only return to welcome fellow WWE Hall of Famer Trish Stratus.
The seven-time WWE Women’s champion will be on hand the kick start her program with Charlotte Flair for a match between the two at SummerSlam. Flair has said that she’s the queen of all eras and her match at SummerSlam will prove that. WWE has so far not officially announced the match but with Stratus appearing on the show, it’s just a matter of time now.
This will be Stratus’ first solo match since her Unforgiven bout against Lita in 2006 where she won her seventh and final Women’s title also in her home town of Toronto.
Responding to CM Punk’s interview on ESPN, Cody Rhodes suggested that columnist Marc Raimondi “misquoted” Punk’s comments when he was asked about AEW presenting him an offer through a text message.
“I think he was misquoted. I know 1 of us had met with him in person, and yes I texted him plenty when we couldn’t connect on the actual phone, but not a contracted offer,” Rhodes wrote in a post on Twitter.
Adding to the saga, the AEW EVP even went as far to say that he would not be surprised if CM Punk eventually went back to WWE instead. “Regardless, great wrestler & guy. Door is open if he wants it.”
ESPN’S Raimondi also replied to Cody’s tweet, assuring him that he did his job correctly. “I promise you he was not misquoted,” he replied.
Tegan Nox, the artist formerly known as Nixon Newell on the independent scene, returned to the ring at a non-televised NXT live event yesterday in Orlando a year after breaking her leg at the 2018 Mae Young Classic tournament.
Nox suffered the injury when she went for a dive and landed badly in her quarter-final match against Rhea Ripley. When she tried to stand up, her leg basically gave out and the referee then stopped the match and declared her opponent the winner. Medical personnel attended to Nox, who was crying and in pain.
She completely tore her ACL and both meniscus, tore the MCL and LCL, suffered from bone contusions and a fractured her left tibia. Nox was also supposed to be part of the 2017 Mae Young Classic tournament but tore her ACL before the start of the tournament.
The 24-year-old from Wales signed a deal with WWE in April 2017 but serious injuries kept her away from the ring for most of these past two years.
Jimmy Uso will have to appear in court on August 15 after getting released on a $1,000 bond yesterday following his DUI arrest in Pensacola, Florida.
According to WEAR-TV, the former Tag Team champion was driving in excess of 100 miles per hour on Interstate 10 and was swerving from left to right. After a deputy stopped Uso, he noticed that he had slow and slurred speech and had trouble holding up his license along with bloodshot eyes.
The deputy put Uso in his car after repeated attempts to get him out of his car to drive to another location for a test, and while he agreed the first time, Jimmy became agitated afterward and was confused about the whole situation while barely able to stand on his feet. When he became uncooperative and trying to shove his phone into the police officer’s face, he was arrested and taken to booking.
In the report it was noted that the officer had to roll down the windows of the car because Jimmy reeked of alcohol.
PWInsider.com is reporting that WWE has hired Chris Resnick, the now former producer and editor of Ring of Honor.
Resnick was one of the main men in charge of the weekly ROH TV shows and pay-per-views, leaving a huge void for the already embattled company which has seen a big downturn in live events attendance. He is a three-time Emmy Award-winning video editor and filmmaker and had worked for Ring of Honor for the past eight years.
According to PWInsider, Resnick will join WWE in a new role working on WWE Network programming.
WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon said he hired the two Executive Directors for Raw and Smackdown to allow him to “look at a longer-range story” and also spend more time on talent development.
Speaking to investors, McMahon said their appointment will also free him from “not get into the weeds” as much as he had to do in the past and considers the hiring a good thing both on short-term and long-term.
“Both of these individuals have extensive backgrounds in the business from various aspects and with the organizational aspects that they have and the depth of talent, executive talent we now attract is going to be really good for our business,” McMahon said.
When asked how much freedom both Bischoff and Heyman will have in their new full-time roles, McMahon said they’ll have “a lot of latitude” although he would still be doing supervision.
The new and visually-improved WWE Network began its worldwide roll-out yesterday with an interface similar that to Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming service providers and moving away from the out-dated design that has been in place since day one of the launch back in 2014.
The new design will also facilitate the introduction of the new multi-tier system and localization of programming that WWE Co-President George Barrios discussed about during the conference call with reporters on Thursday.
WWE is planning to have a free subscription tier where everyone can see certain content and then the regular paid tier and an additional premium tier. The premium tier will allow fans to watch events like the EVOLVE 10th anniversary show and similar events that WWE plans to carry on their Network.
“I think the cadence will be the free-tier first, which we’re really excited about, paid tier, premium tier, second, and then our first additional language we believe after that. I think you’ll start seeing things this year around that and probably all 3 gets done within the next 12 months or so depending on how the roll-out goes, but you begin to see those business this year,” Barrios said during the conference call.
In a wide-ranging interview with Marc Raimondi of ESPN, CM Punk talked about appearing at the upcoming Starrcast III event and the rumors of him showing up at the All Out pay-per-view from his home town of Chicago.
Punk said he got a text from Cody around a month ago and he didn’t know how to reply because if he replies, they were going to mention that they talked to him and if he doesn’t reply, well, it’s not nice either.
“I always think if somebody wants to do business with me, they can come talk to me. Texting offers isn’t really a way to do good business, at least,” Punk said.
When asked by Raimondi if AEW presented him an offer through a text message, Punk said that it was texted through three people and an offer came in through SMS.
“It was a just a general offer,” Punk said, when he was quizzed if it was about All Out. He said he “doubts” he will be involved in wrestling by the end of 2020, noting he’s still under contract to the UFC and is enjoying doing commentary for Cage Fury Fighting Championships.
Punk said if there’s an expectation for him by fans to be at All Out, it is certainly not his fault and his silence should mean something.
“They’re trying to read the tea leaves, but there’s nothing to read. I even feel like talking about it may feel like I’m putting some sort of negative slant on it, but I’m really not. The fact is I know they’ve teased me ad nauseam, and if anybody is gonna get mad it’s at me because I don’t show up. Well then, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s one of those things that’s none of my business,” Punk said.
During the conference call with reporters earlier today to discuss the latest financial results, WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon said that WWE programming will be moving towards the more edgier style but they will be remaining TV PG.
Vince said that the plan is not to go back to the Attitude Era type of “blood and guts” but will be pushing more the envelope while keeping their family-friendly rating.
McMahon mentioned that their “new competitor” will probably take the much more edgier approach and do blood and crazy stuff that they did 20 years ago but WWE will be staying away from that.
When also asked about All Elite Wrestling, McMahon said that competition is always good and it’s good for everyone. He said that he cannot see TNT agreeing to the much edgier stuff that AEW already did on their pay-per-view.
AEW President Tony Khan said in the post-Double or Nothing comments that while the company will do more hardcore stuff on PPVs and other events, they will tone it down for their weekly TNT shows.
Wall Street reacted somewhat positively – at least so far – to today’s WWE earnings results after profit that beat expectations but revenue that missed targets.
WWE stocks finished the day trading at $74.97, an increase of 9% over yesterday’s closing. Despite all this, WWE stock is down 20% over a three month period.
Overall revenue fell 4.5% with media revenue falling 3% and live events revenue down 7%. Live event attendance was down 2% and consumer products also down a whopping 13%. Despite all the negatives, WWE is still targeting a revenue of approximately $1 billion for the year 2019 which would be a record. A more in-depth look of their trading potential can be read on https://www.forex.academy. Many people are tuning in to learn how to trade these options properly.
Television ratings were not pretty either with Raw going down 14% and Smackdown 11% year-over-year.
Colby Covington is set to face off against Robbie Lawler in the main event of UFC on ESPN 5 on August 3rd in Newark, New Jersey. There is a lot at stake for Colby in this fight, as he can get a ticket to a title fight against division king, Kamaru Usman, but he can also use this as an opportunity to take out the man who left his team a couple of years ago.
Betting Odds
Despite not fighting for over a year due to a sinus surgery, Covington is easily the betting favorite according to most bookies, coming in with odds of -250 on Betway, compared to +188 for Robbie Lawler. This might surprise some people, as Lawler is an all-time great fighter, but he is getting up there in age, so the younger and faster Covington is a clear favorite for most people including bookmakers. You can see all the UFC betting Canadaoffers to place a bet on the fight yourself.
Even though this is the main event, there are other fights going on that day that you should look at if you are looking to bet on UFC fights. Oezdemir and Latifi will face off with equal odds of winning at -115. Guida and Jim Miller will also fight, with the former being the favorite at -185 compared to +150. Another interesting fight could be Espinosa versus Schnell. In this all-American fight, Espinosa is the favorite with winning odds of -170, while Schnell comes in with +140.
Colby Covington
Colby “Chaos” Covington has never been one to shy away from trash talking his opponents. He didn’t back away from doing that leading up to this fight either, saying that he will leave Robbie Lawler in a pool of his own blood for leaving the American Top Team. However, he is a little contradicting in his statements this time around, as he has also stated that “there is no better fight to defend his title against than “Ruthless” Robbie Lawler”, who he also considers to be the last great champion of the division, besides himself of course.
Covington is known for his supreme confidence no matter who he faces, but from most of his statements, we can see that he has a lot of respect for Robbie Lawler and will make sure that he brings his A-game on August 3 if he wants to defeat him. And to be fair, if Colby Covington brings his A-game against anyone in the UFC, he has a very strong chance of winning.
Robbie Lawler
Lawler left American Top Teamafter the gym featured a photo of Tyron Woodley with his hands up after defeating “Ruthless” for the welterweight title. However, he has since moved past that and refused to reply to Colby after his comments, saying that he is “just talking” and that he is only focused on the fight, and not what anyone else says. He also praised Covington for his tremendous work ethic and ability in the octagon.
Lawler has held the welterweight title between December 2014 and July 2016, until he suffered a first-round knockout at the hands of Tyron Woodley, which as we mentioned, led to him leaving ATT. Since then, he has fought just three times, beating Donald Cerrone before losing to Dos Anjos and Ben Askren.
It is clear that both fighters have a lot of respect for each other, despite their somewhat rocky past. It will be a real pleasure to watch them go at it on August 3rd in Newark. It is also expected that members of the Trump family will be in attendance.
WWE Network ended Q2 2019 with an average of 1.69 million paid subscribers, a decrease of approximately 6% year-over-year.
For the third quarter 2019, the company projects average paid subscribers of approximately 1.53 million, representing a year-over-year decline of 8%. Given the actual and projected subscriber declines, WWE does not expect to achieve record number of subscribers for 2019.
The Network, along with traditional PPVs, contributed $51.8 million to this quarter, down from the $56.2 million it did last year. In a bid to boost subscribers, WWE offered a select number of former subscribers the ability to subscribe to the service for 3 months for just 99 cents.
During the quarter, WWE produced more than 90 hours of original network content, including live in-ring programs and talent documentaries.
The company is now rolling out the new version of the WWE Network with better features which should be available to all subscribers worldwide this week.
WWE today announced the Q2 2019 financial results ending June 30, 2019.
Revenues were $268.9 million as compared to $281.6 million in the prior year quarter due to lower Media, Live Events and Consumer Products business segments. Operating income was $17.1 million, down from $21.2 million in the prior year quarter. Adjusted OIBDA was $34.6 million, which exceeded the Company’s guidance.
“During the quarter, we made progress on key strategic initiatives,” stated Vince McMahon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We completed content distribution agreements in key international markets, prepared for the next phase of our WWE Network service, and achieved steady improvement in engagement metrics. As indicated previously, we remain excited about the future, particularly with our debut on Fox in October.”
George Barrios, Co-President, added “In the quarter, our earnings exceeded guidance, however we anticipate a portion of this to reverse and we continue to target full-year Adjusted OIBDA of at least $200 million. The guidance presupposes the staging of a second large scale international event and the completion of a media rights deal in the MENA region. As we optimize near-term results, we will continue to focus on content creation, localization and digitization, including the evolution of our direct-to-consumer network, to drive long-term growth.”
During the quarter, WWE announced new broadcast deals with BT Sport in the U.K., Fox Sports in Latin America and PP Sports in China, providing strong platforms for reaching WWE audiences.
