This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw drew an average of 1,689,000 viewers, down 36,000 viewers from last week’s broadcast. The show went up against the debut of Monday Night Football on ESPN which did over 18 million viewers for the two games and the season premiere of Dancing With The Stars on ABC which pulled in an additional 8 million viewers.
Hour one started with 1,812,000, followed by 1,734,000 in the second hour, and then dropping to 1,521,000 for the third and final hour. The show dropped nearly 300,000 viewers from hour one to hour three.
Raw was #5, #6, and #8 in the top 50 cable chart among the 18-49 demographic with 0.52, 0.52, and 0.45 ratings for each hour. It was #25 in overall viewership for the night on cable. (Ratings credit: Showbuzzdaily.com)
WWE Hall of Famer Booker T said on his podcast that he had tested positive for coronavirus back in June.
Discussing the topic, Booker said that he was notified about his positive test by the CDC yesterday, two and a half months after undergoing the test. “It just goes to show you how backed up with this system that we’re working with,” Booker said.
The former WCW champion has since undergone three more tests and had negative results. Booker said he had the headaches, night sweats, lost his taste, and all the usual symptoms associated with COVID-19 and quarantined himself from the rest of the family and did not mingle with them until all the symptoms were gone and regained his taste.
The partnership between sport and betting has always been viewed with skeptical lenses. Many believe bookmakers sponsoring the sports team fuel gambling addiction, even though there is no actual evidence that supports this claim. Although, the Football Association (FA) disassociated itself from the Ladbrokes. However, the partnership between football and betting still waxed stronger.
Recently, there way uproar when Bet365 took the rights to broadcast some FA cup matches and the only way to watch was by creating a betting account on the bookie’s site. There has been a lot of debate about the negative effect of betting sponsorship on sports, but rarely a discussion on the positive impacts of these partnerships.
For Kenyan punters, finding the right betting website is quite easy. With the number of international and local betting companies, like MCheza Kenya, available to punters of legal age, the options come in large numbers. The majority of these gambling websites are known to be safe and they provide decent sports markets.
Sports Betting Sponsorships in the Premier League
Between 2019 to 2020, about half of the clubs in the Premier League are sponsored by sports betting companies. In the Championship league, more than half of the clubs are sponsored by these betting establishments. For most people, this is a disturbing number. However, the sports industry is essentially a business, as it is evident that these gambling establishments are the highest bidders when it comes to the amount offered to gain these sponsorships.
Football clubs require money to acquire quality players, pay their staff amongst other things. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect these clubs to turn down the benefiting offers for sponsorships from sports betting brands. On average, deals between football clubs and sport betting companies are worth millions of pounds each year.
Misconceptions on Sports Betting Sponsorships and Football
In 2017, Joey Barton was banned and forced to take early retirement due for betting on football matches. Of course, the former Burnley midfielder pointed are the F.A’s hypocrisy over gambling as it has a thriving partnership with Ladbrokes at the time, which is said to worth £4 million a year.
Barton emphasized in a statement “I think if the FA is truly serious about tackling the culture of gambling in football, it needs to look at its own dependence on the gambling companies, their role in football and in sports broadcasting, rather than just blaming the players who place a bet.”
Little changes have been since Barton’s statement years ago. The partnership between football clubs and sports betting companies is evidently still thriving. In reality, most clubs outside the Premier League are not financially strong enough to turn down deals with sports betting companies.
Is there an expected change in the near future?
Sponsorships deals enables clubs to invest in players, as well as youth and community schemes in their local area. With £70 million a year, which an average Premier League club receives through their sponsorship deals with sports betting establishments, it is hard to turn down these lucrative partnerships.
The Asuka vs Mickie James match ending on Raw last night left everyone wondering what the hell happened as the referee stopped the match out of nowhere.
Asuka had Mickie James locked in the Asuka Lock but James was rolling around trying to escape from the submission move. At that point, the referee signaled to the timekeeper to ring the bell as James had a WTF look on her face and gestured with her hand as if to say, “Why?”
The commentary team sounded confused and even the referee looked confused, not to mention both Asuka and James were even more confused. The referee then told the ring announcer that Mickie James could not continue even though it was pretty obvious that she was still in control.
“I’m hearing that @MickieJames may have injured her shoulder in tonight’s #Raw match – which would explain the quick ending to the match,” tweeted Mick Foley after the match.
But neither WWE nor Mickie James have announced anything related to any injury. James posted a photo of her WTF look on social media with the words “Not… Like… This…” and a broken heart emoji.
Former Raw Women’s champion Sasha Banks makes a cameo appearance in the second season trailer of Disney’s The Mandalorian.
Airing exclusively on the Disney+ streaming service, The Mandalorian is the first live-action series in the Star Wars franchise and set five years after the events of Return of the Jedi.
Banks will be playing a Jedi although at this point, there’s no information on her character.
“This is the way,” tweeted Banks along with the trailer.
Season two of The Mandalorian hits Disney+ on October 30. You can see the trailer below.
Ivar of the Viking Raiders will be out for a while as he undergoes neck surgery today at the Andrews Sports Medicine & Orthopaedic Center in Birmingham, Alabama.
Ivar suffered the injury on last week’s Raw during an eight-man tag team match when he went for a suicide dive but landed badly, immediately throwing the X hand sign to notify the referee. The match went to the ending immediately with the referee hitting a three-count on Ricochet even though he kicked out at two. Ivar was then transported to a local hospital for observation.
Last week, WWE noted in a post on their official website that Ivar would be making a full recovery from his cervical injury.
Wrestling is one of the most-watched sports on television and is very popular among sports lovers all over the world. Many wrestling events take place all around the year in many parts of the world. This sport is so very popular that all the gaming software developers use it as one of their themes for the video and online casino games. If you are a slot lover, check out bingo sites with free signup bonus no deposit required to find irresistible titles under this genre that come with attractive offers as well. Many websites that offer casino titles allow free money for the newbie and the regular punters to check out the games. By using these offers, gamers can indulge in bingo and other games with real bets without spending much money from their pockets.
Were you looking for popular wrestling events of the past? Check out what the then-TNA, now Impact Wrestling had to offer. The promotion made its debut in 2002 and did have a rough road before its launch. It began its run as a PPV every Wednesday night under NWA’s banner. Jeff Jarret was adamant in breaking the monopoly run WWE enjoyed in the wrestling world. It slowly grabbed the attention of the fans.
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) parted ways with NWA which led to the creation of TNA World Heavyweight Championship in 2007. TNA got its own identity after five years of inception.
The following are a few of the dubious TNA World Champions since the event started in 2007 and moved on to Impact World Championship in 2017.
Eddie Edwards (2016)
Eddie Edwards name will go down in the history books as the last person to win the 2016 TNA World Championship. From 2017, the championship was known as Impact World Championship. Edwards was all along with a tag team wrestler and joined hands with Davey Richards during his TNA days. But, the surprising win in 2016 did spring a huge surprise to the followers of the event as he overcame Booby Lashey during the Impact fight.
Matt Hardy (2015)
Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy are a brother’s tag team to watch out for in WWE. He is the primary force to bring the ECW Championship to WWE. He was not a serious contender for other world titles, and he had been at best a middle title bearer. Matt Hardy was not at his best grappling play during the prime event. He was 41 years old when he competed in 2015. With some colossal luck and God’s grace, he defeated EC3 to grab hold of the world title. He changed his name to Big Money Matt.
Magnus (2013)
Magnus had the looks of a TNA star from the very moment he stepped in TNA. However, he was a complete failure and did not have the perfect size to pose a serious threat to other competitors. He did not have proper mic skills and lacked the charm needed for the big stage, despite carrying himself as a star figure. Despite all this, TNA felt he was a champion material. True to their belief, Magnus won the title in 2013 and became a world champion, a post he held onto for 128 days.
The STAPLES Center has booked two concerts on the days that WWE was supposed to perform in the building during WrestleMania 37 weekend in March 2021.
The updated calendar of the STAPLES Center shows that on Friday, March 26 and Saturday, March 27, there are now two concerts by Grupo Firme. Friday Night Smackdown and NXT Takeover were supposed to take place on those two nights as per the press release WWE sent earlier this year when announcing that WrestleMania 37 was going to the SoFi Stadium.
Earlier this year, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said that large gatherings for concerts and sporting events might not be approved until mid-2021, putting doubts that WrestleMania would happen inside the new $5 billion facility in Inglewood.
WWE has made no announcements yet about WrestleMania 37 and with the COVID-19 pandemic still in full force, it’s very hard to predict in what state we’ll be in come March 2021. There were rumors that if WWE moved away from the SoFi Stadium for next year’s WrestleMania, Tampa would get a shot again after this year’s Mania had to be moved inside the Performance Center.
Five members of the Retribution faction have been revealed as John Pollock of POSTWrestling.com reported that Dominik Dijakovic, Dio Maddin, Shane Thorne, Mercedes Martinez, and Mia Yim are all listed on the WWE internal roster representing the group.
The two individuals who have been doing promos for Retribution are Dijakovic and Martinez.
All five members are either current or former NXT stars with Martinez appearing on NXT last week, losing to Rhea Ripley in a steel cage match.
Other individuals were used in the early days of the group when it was introduced but lately these five have been appearing under the masks and hoodies.
The WWE championship at Clash of Champions will be up for grabs in an ambulance match as Drew McIntyre will defend the gold against Randy Orton.
Keith Lee had an opportunity to insert himself in the match last night on Raw but his match against McIntyre ended in a no contest when Retribution interfered to spoil the party.
The gimmick match has not been used in WWE for a while and the last one held was between Braun Strowman and Roman Reigns at the first – and only – Great Balls of Fire pay-per-view in 2017, a match which Strowman won.
Clash of Champions airs on September 27 on the WWE Network.
In an interview with BT Sport in the United Kingdom, current Intercontinental champion Jeff Hardy revealed that he has signed a new WWE contract.
Hardy said that part of the deal for re-signing with WWE is that when the company gets back in front of live fans, his popular No More Words theme song would be used instead of the current theme.
“No More Words, when we do get in front of a crowd again, that was a part of me re-signing. I’m like…if we get in front of people again, I’d like to use No More Words again because I know you all want it,” Jeff said.
“That was the deal for me re-signing,” he continued. “That’s gonna be the ticket when we get back in front of crowds. That’s going to boost me even more. To hear that music again…I think the Hardy Boyz music is just for Matt and Jeff Hardy, not just Jeff Hardy.”
Jeff’s original contract was extended to cover his time away from the ring due to injury but the former WWE champion has now also put pen to paper, staying away from his brother in All Elite Wrestling.
All Elite Wrestling is offering a “season pass” ticket covering seven Dynamite live events throughout the months of September, October, and November.
The price for seven events is $175 plus additional fees and the ticket pass is valid starting from September 23.
The company has had a hard time selling tickets at Daily’s Place lately with lots of tickets going unsold. AEW is only filling a small percentage of Daily’s Place to comply with physically-distanced seating and state, local, and CDC guidelines.
AEW usually sells tickets for $39.75 or $59.75 each, depending which section of the arena you sit in. Tickets are sold in groups of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6.
If you’re interested in purchasing the pass, contact ticketing@jaguars.com or call 904-633-2000.
Simone Johnson, the daughter of WWE legend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, will be undergoing knee surgery today.
Johnson, who is training full time at the WWE Performance Center in hopes of following her father’s footsteps, noted that this will be the third surgery on her knee and she’s looking forward to her knee “not popping out anymore.”
Simone has been a WWE PC student since February of this year. She has not made her NXT debut yet although she was caught several times on camera as one of the stand-in crowds during television tapings at both Full Sail and the Performance Center before WWE moved to the ThunderDome at Amway Center.
Ronda Rousey stepped back in a wrestling again this past weekend, training with Teal Piper, the daughter of the late WWE Hall of Famer Rowdy Roddy Piper.
Rousey is a big family friend and Piper is training to get back in action after she had to undergo ACL surgery six months ago.
The former Raw Women’s champion has not been seen on WWE television since WrestleMania 35 where she lost the title to Becky Lynch in the first-ever women’s main event at a WrestleMania.
Ronda noted on Instagram that she missed being “this kind of sore” after wrestling training. Joining them in the session were wrestlers Deimos and JTG, and fitness trainer Ramsey Frikha.
With the Nuggets forcing game seven with the Clippers in the NBA Playoffs, TNT will be free on Wednesday night and All Elite Wrestling’s Dynamite broadcast will now air on Wednesday in its usual time slot rather than Thursday.
The show, which has already been taped, was supposed to be the last pre-empted broadcast for AEW this year but the decision has now been taken to air it against NXT, resuming the Wednesday night war.
This will be the first Dynamite and NXT head-to-head since the August 12 broadcast, with Dynamite pre-empted on TNT for basketball and NXT pre-empted by USA for hockey.
The last time the two shows went head-to-head, Dynamite beat NXT 792,000 to 619,000 viewers. Dynamite is coming off a great week with over 1 million viewers tuning in while NXT has hovered in the 800,000-mark since it aired unopposed.
SoFi Stadium, the host, at least for now, of the upcoming WrestleMania 37 in Inglewood, California, opened for business officially yesterday with the Los Angeles Rams hosting the Dallas Cowboys.
The stadium was originally scheduled to open in late July with two Taylor Swift concerts but the coronavirus pandemic pushed everything by a few months. The $5 billion facility was ready for game-day yesterday though and looked incredible.
The stadium has the largest video board ever created for sports, with over 70,000 square feet of 4K LED screens, with the largest end of the board measuring a whopping four stories tall! 260 speakers with enough wattage power of around 1,500 home theater systems power the audio system of this massive video board.
But the prospects of hosting WrestleMania at the SoFi Stadium look bleak with every day that passes. Despite the announcement, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said a few months ago that large gatherings for concerts and sporting events might not be approved until mid-2021.
Sasha Banks will be back on Smackdown next Friday, her first appearance since she was attacked by Bayley after losing their re-match for the WWE Women’s Tag Team titles against Shayna Baszler and Nia Jax.
Banks’ appearance was announced during a commercial on FOX on today’s NFL broadcast, with Michael Cole doing the voice over saying that Banks will be addressing her former best friend’s “heinous attack.”
Part of the partnership between WWE and FOX is the ads for WWE programming during highly-watched broadcasts such as the NFL.
In an interview with SportTechie.com, WWE Chief Technology Officer Rajan Mehta discussed the launch of the ThunderDome and the need to adapt and take calculated risks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mehta is credited with facilitating the teleworking aspect in WWE during the pandemic, including remote production and editing. He is also one of the brains behind the state-of-the-art ThunderDome which made its debut on August 20.
“Broadly at WWE, we’ve always had a willingness to reimagine, disrupt, take calculated risks and stay relevant. It’s about treating every day as if it’s your first day on the job and staying slightly ahead of the curve. We have that in our DNA,” Mehta said.
The return of Monday Night Football on ESPN usually spells trouble for WWE and its Monday Night Raw television program on USA Network.
Over the past several years, the first episode of Monday Night Football led to a huge drop in viewers for Raw and while the audience historically recovers somewhat, it’s never to the levels of the numbers before football. Simply put, until the football season is over, the ever-shrinking Raw audience will continue to shrink, and this year, to record levels.
Last year, the Raw before MNF on ESPN did 2.5 million viewers but the Raw head-to-head with the football the week after did 2.1 million viewers, a drop of 400,000 in a week.
2018 wasn’t so bad, with only a drop of 132,000 viewers and 2017 saw only 30,000 viewers difference but two weeks prior, Raw lost another 400,000 viewers and the audience was never recovered until January.
The drop in 2016 was of nearly 400,000 viewers as well and 2015 was the biggest one ever. That year, the Raw prior to Monday Night Football had 3.8 million viewers and the head-to-head broadcast with MNF did 3 million, a drop of a whopping 800,000 viewers.
WWE managed slight drops in 2013 and 2014 but 2012 also suffered a big one with over 400,000 tuning in to NFL rather than Raw.
Raw this year already experienced record-low ratings and a 400,000-viewer drop would put Raw in the 1.3 million range. While the hardcore audience will probably stick with Raw, those who are not deeply invested in the product will without a doubt switch channels.
The question is how many of those 1.7 million viewers that Raw got last week are hardcore viewers who will stick with the show regardless if football is on or not.
Over the past 22 weeks since WrestleMania, Raw only surpassed the 2 million viewer mark twice and had an average of 1.7 million viewers. On average so far, Raw has already lost half a million viewers per episode when compared to last year.
Mandy Rose is swapping colors and heading to Monday Night Raw. The news was announced during Talking Smack when The Miz “crashed the set” to break the news.
WWE.COM is playing this as Miz and Morrison’s latest tactic for Otis to part with his Money In The Bank contract.
Rose, along with her former tag team partner Sonya Deville, moved to Smackdown from Raw during the 2018 Superstar Shake-up and remained on the blue brand during the April 2019 Superstar Shake-up and also the October 2019 WWE Draft.
Her move to Raw will see her split up from Otis. She recently survived a loser leaves WWE match against Sonya Deville at SummerSlam.
