Week in Wrestling - Sunday, April 15, 2018
Coming off the biggest Wrestlemania week on history, we have full coverage from the live shows we attended last week in New Orleans here, and cover many of the surprises from the fallout on Raw and Smackdown here. Be sure to check out those articles.
WWE NEWS
Brock Retains and Resigns
Not only did Brock Lesnar defeat Roman Reigns to retain the Universal title at Mania, which was a huge surprise to everyone but a very small few, the company announced on Monday that he signed a new short term deal. Brock will defend the title at the Greatest Royal Rumble show, in a cage against Reigns. And after that, who knows. The way things are going, he could sign again after that and never go to UFC, which I don't think he should anyway.
As far as the change to the finish of the match, according to Dave Meltzer, nobody in the back knew but Vince and the guys involved in the match. The ref was even told at the very last minute. When it was over, everyone was shocked.
As far as the change to the finish of the match, according to Dave Meltzer, nobody in the back knew but Vince and the guys involved in the match. The ref was even told at the very last minute. When it was over, everyone was shocked.
Failed Again
The crowd went into Mania expecting Reigns to win and they were going to ruin every minute of it. They hate him, bottomline. They don't want him as the top guy and champion of the WWE. They crapped all over the main event, chanting “This is awful,” and worse, and reacted more to beach balls in the crowd and decided to get back at the company by paying no attention to what was a main event that was the culmination of a year’s worth of stories.
Saudi Arabia at least would go with it better, if the title change is in Saudi Arabia. The belief is that Reigns’ title win is coming. But nobody will come.
Saudi Arabia at least would go with it better, if the title change is in Saudi Arabia. The belief is that Reigns’ title win is coming. But nobody will come.
Saudi Arabia Card
As we all should know by now, this Saudi Arabia card is loaded beyond any non major PPV show we have ever seen, because the company is being paid huge money for this show. Lesnar was said to have gotten a significant raise on his new deal to defend the title against Roman Reigns in a cage in Saudi Arabia. Basically this show is an all-hands on deck event with all the part-time top stars like Lesnar, Angle, HHH, Cena and Jericho working.
Also announced for The Greatest Royal Rumble is a John Cena vs. HHH match, an Undertaker vs. Chris Jericho casket match, a four-way ladder match for the IC title with Rollins defending against Miz, Samoa Joe and Balor, The Bludgeon Brothers will defend the Smackdown tag team titles against The Usos, a U.S. title defense by Jinder Mahal, a WWE title defense by A.J. Styles, probably against Shinsuke Nakamura, and a cruiserweight title defense by Cedric Alexander, with Mustafa Ali or Buddy Murphy the likely opponents.
Names announced for the 50 man Rumble are Daniel Bryan, Big Show, Kane, Bray Wyatt, Angle, Baron Corbin, New Day, Apollo, Shelton Benjamin, Sin Cara, Elias, Chad Gable, Goldust, Titus O'Neil, Mojo Rawley, Dolph Ziggler, and Rey Mysterio Jr.
Also announced for The Greatest Royal Rumble is a John Cena vs. HHH match, an Undertaker vs. Chris Jericho casket match, a four-way ladder match for the IC title with Rollins defending against Miz, Samoa Joe and Balor, The Bludgeon Brothers will defend the Smackdown tag team titles against The Usos, a U.S. title defense by Jinder Mahal, a WWE title defense by A.J. Styles, probably against Shinsuke Nakamura, and a cruiserweight title defense by Cedric Alexander, with Mustafa Ali or Buddy Murphy the likely opponents.
Names announced for the 50 man Rumble are Daniel Bryan, Big Show, Kane, Bray Wyatt, Angle, Baron Corbin, New Day, Apollo, Shelton Benjamin, Sin Cara, Elias, Chad Gable, Goldust, Titus O'Neil, Mojo Rawley, Dolph Ziggler, and Rey Mysterio Jr.
Rusev gets Replaced
Originally Undertaker was going to face Rusev in a casket match, but Rusev on Twitter, called attention to the match and then wrote “bury me softly, brother” in response. Jericho, who was originally to have been in the Rumble, was then put in his spot.
Word is the company was not happy about Rusev's Tweet and decided to make a change. More on this as we learn more details.
Word is the company was not happy about Rusev's Tweet and decided to make a change. More on this as we learn more details.
New Network Numbers
As of 4/9, the WWE Network was at 1,808,000 total subscribers and and also had 316,000 free subscribers based on the strong free push on television. Both are worldwide numbers, not domestic. Because the splits weren’t announced, right now there is no way to know if the increase from last year is primarily new markets, or existing markets like the U.S. Last year, the day after WrestleMania, those numbers were 1,661,000 paid and 288,000 free. From New Year’s Day to WrestleMania, they picked up a net addition of 335,000 subscribers, up from 258,000 last year.
WrestleMania is the big driver of the growth and this year’s Mania, on paper, with Rousey, Bryan, and Cena vs. Undertaker, was stronger than last year so paid growth being better should have been the case. But since we don’t know how many of those 335,000 new subscriptions are at full price, it’s kind of meaningless until we see the conversion rate. The actual average paid subscribers for the first quarter were 1,558,000, up five percent from 1,490,000 last year, but again, that includes this year’s gimmicks.
For the week of WrestleMania, the average WWE Network subscriber watched 11.86 hours of programming. Last year they averaged 11.54 hours of programming. So essentially it was up 19 minutes, but with a Hall of Fame show that went much longer, and an NXT show that went about 40 minutes longer, plus a longer Mania show, if anything, you’d expect far more than a 19 minute per viewer increase.
He also said that creating new tiers for the network will happen sooner than later. Recently, WWE sent out another survey to some of its subscribers asking about interest in a future tier and bringing up if they had interest in footage from different promotions, listed as TNA (which doesn’t even use that name anymore), New Japan, ROH, ICW and Progress. WWE already has deals in place with ICW and Progress for network footage, but Vince McMahon hasn’t greenlit the idea of putting any current non-WWE promotion on.
WrestleMania is the big driver of the growth and this year’s Mania, on paper, with Rousey, Bryan, and Cena vs. Undertaker, was stronger than last year so paid growth being better should have been the case. But since we don’t know how many of those 335,000 new subscriptions are at full price, it’s kind of meaningless until we see the conversion rate. The actual average paid subscribers for the first quarter were 1,558,000, up five percent from 1,490,000 last year, but again, that includes this year’s gimmicks.
For the week of WrestleMania, the average WWE Network subscriber watched 11.86 hours of programming. Last year they averaged 11.54 hours of programming. So essentially it was up 19 minutes, but with a Hall of Fame show that went much longer, and an NXT show that went about 40 minutes longer, plus a longer Mania show, if anything, you’d expect far more than a 19 minute per viewer increase.
He also said that creating new tiers for the network will happen sooner than later. Recently, WWE sent out another survey to some of its subscribers asking about interest in a future tier and bringing up if they had interest in footage from different promotions, listed as TNA (which doesn’t even use that name anymore), New Japan, ROH, ICW and Progress. WWE already has deals in place with ICW and Progress for network footage, but Vince McMahon hasn’t greenlit the idea of putting any current non-WWE promotion on.
New Network Programming
It's pretty clear that they must be happy with the network performance with the strong increase after a somewhat weak last six months of 2017, because they are back to doing a lot more original programming. This past week they announced a number of new shows. There will be new WWE 24 documentaries on Rousey, The Hardys and Raw 25, which all have been shot or shooting of late. The Rousey video is about the build to her match so I'd guess they would have finished shooting this past weekend. There will be a show called Elias Unplugged. They filmed an episode this past week with him performing at Bourbon Street.
There is a new show called Something Else to Wrestle With Bruce Prichard, which will be Prichard and Conrad Thompson talking about his days with WWE, similar to their podcast. They are also bringing back the Edge & Christian show, making new episodes of Camp WWE and Story time, as well as continue the Table for 3 and Ride Along shows that have been popular on the network.
There is a new show called Something Else to Wrestle With Bruce Prichard, which will be Prichard and Conrad Thompson talking about his days with WWE, similar to their podcast. They are also bringing back the Edge & Christian show, making new episodes of Camp WWE and Story time, as well as continue the Table for 3 and Ride Along shows that have been popular on the network.
NXT NEWS
Best Ladder Match Ever
Adam Cole won a six-way ladder match to become the first holder of the North American title over Ricochet, EC 3, Killian Dain, Lars Sullivan and Velveteen Dream, and it was a hell of a match. The crowd was jacked before the match ever started, and they stayed hot throughout. These guys went out there and put on a masterpiece!!! Adam Cole is super Over!!!
Blood Feud
Takeover ended with a dramatic war where Johnny Gargano got his “job back” in beating Tommaso Ciampa in an unsanctioned match in a brutal and dramatic battle. This was just a crazy match and came down to being a straight up fight! A classic blood fight.
New NXT Champion
Aleister Black won the NXT title from Andrade Cien Almas, in a great match that was overshadowed by the excellent previously mentioned matches. Black is super talented and will make for a great champion, but Almas was the star of the match in my opinion, and should get some return bouts. Both worked their ass off.
New Japan Pro Wrestling News
Saber in Full Time
A lot of the talk revolved around the numerous losses suffered by Zack Sabre Jr. over Mania weekend in New Orleans. Sabre Jr. lost his Evolve title on the 4/5 show to Matt Riddle, and the next day, lost his Revolution Pro British heavyweight title to Tomohiro Ishii, and also lost to Walter on the 4/7 Progress show. This is notable coming off the biggest run of his career with New Japan in winning the New Japan Cup.
This led to a lot of speculation regarding his future, which is accurate in the sense he's just signed a new full-time deal with New Japan. While it's not clear if he'll be only working New Japan, he will be doing a lot less independent work going forward.
This led to a lot of speculation regarding his future, which is accurate in the sense he's just signed a new full-time deal with New Japan. While it's not clear if he'll be only working New Japan, he will be doing a lot less independent work going forward.
Big NJPW Stars in NOLA
Hiroshi Tanahashi, Minoru Suzuki, Tomohiro Ishii, and Kota Ibushi were all featured in prominent matches over Wrestlemania weekend in New Orleans. It was the first time this many big stars from NJPW were free to perform on the various independent shows, due tos scheduling. It's a testament of how much the NJPW product has expanded into the U.S.
Kazuchika Okada, Tiger Hattori, Red Shoes Unno, Minoru Suzuki, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii all went to WrestleMania to see the show because of the A.J. Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura match.
Kazuchika Okada, Tiger Hattori, Red Shoes Unno, Minoru Suzuki, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tomohiro Ishii all went to WrestleMania to see the show because of the A.J. Styles vs. Shinsuke Nakamura match.
Ring of Honor News
Supercard Recap
Ring of Honor ran the biggest show in its history on 4/7 built around the first meeting of Cody vs. Kenny Omega. Cody beat Omega in 37:09 when the Young Bucks interference backfired after a ref bump. The idea of this was not one-match, but to do a long program, which means you can’t do all your moves in the first match, and the first match is to tell the story to where the face still has something to show and prove in rematches.
The show featured three outstanding matches, but was not a home run by any means. There were a number of problems. The show itself went too long. The main show went nearly five hours and with the preshow it was closer to five-and-a-half hours.
The decision was made to put the ROH title match with Dalton Castle vs. Marty Scurll on after Cody vs. Omega, which led to thousands of people leaving. Then, the title match went 31:39. Similar to the final match at WrestleMania, it was technically a good match, but the lack of crowd reaction killed it. Unlike Mania, where it was a crowd bound and determined to make sure the match didn’t get over, this was a crowd that had already seen the main event, were pretty much spent early on after the Kota Ibushi vs. Hangman Page and ladder match and after getting a second wind for Cody vs. Omega, there was pretty much nothing that could have been done after what had already been such a long show to get them back.
The show featured three outstanding matches, but was not a home run by any means. There were a number of problems. The show itself went too long. The main show went nearly five hours and with the preshow it was closer to five-and-a-half hours.
The decision was made to put the ROH title match with Dalton Castle vs. Marty Scurll on after Cody vs. Omega, which led to thousands of people leaving. Then, the title match went 31:39. Similar to the final match at WrestleMania, it was technically a good match, but the lack of crowd reaction killed it. Unlike Mania, where it was a crowd bound and determined to make sure the match didn’t get over, this was a crowd that had already seen the main event, were pretty much spent early on after the Kota Ibushi vs. Hangman Page and ladder match and after getting a second wind for Cody vs. Omega, there was pretty much nothing that could have been done after what had already been such a long show to get them back.
IMPACT News
Alberto Fired
Alberto El Patron no-showed the Impact and Lucha Underground joint show that took place on 4/7 at the Sugar Mill in New Orleans. Alberto was in New Orleans, at WaleMania on Thursday, and the Impact press conference on that Friday to promote his 4/22 Redemption PPV match with Impact champion Austin Aries that day, where they shot a physical angle, and one person noted to us he wasn't acting normal. He then missed the show that night, where he was scheduled for a main event tag team match that was to set up the two big singles matches for the PPV, which were his match, and a Pentagon Jr. vs. Fenix match.
After he no-showed that card, as well as an autograph session the next day, Impact announced they were releasing him. His contract was to expire the day before the PPV and even though they had talked, they had not signed a new deal. Alberto had claimed he missed the show because he was sick, but if the company believed him, I can't imagine they'd let him go and screw up all the promotion of their main event. They had already shot several angles for the match and have angles already shot in the can so it would be easier to just finish him up at the PPV. Evidently, they felt strongly enough about it that they released him.
After he no-showed that card, as well as an autograph session the next day, Impact announced they were releasing him. His contract was to expire the day before the PPV and even though they had talked, they had not signed a new deal. Alberto had claimed he missed the show because he was sick, but if the company believed him, I can't imagine they'd let him go and screw up all the promotion of their main event. They had already shot several angles for the match and have angles already shot in the can so it would be easier to just finish him up at the PPV. Evidently, they felt strongly enough about it that they released him.
INDEPENDENT NEWS
Being the Elite Over?
In a surprise, the Being the Elite weekly video show may be finished. The 100th episode came out on 4/10 and was called “The Finale,” and was there to wrap up a lot of storylines, but was also open-ended in other ways. Matt Jackson, who started the series with his brother Nick in May, 2016, and released episodes weekly since then, said it was undecided if they would revive the show.
The series created a lot of major storylines, most notably the Cody Rhodes vs. Kenny Omega story that played out more on the show than anywhere else, even if the big angles were shot in New Japan. It also helped bring its key characters to a new level of popularity, most notably Hangman Page, Brandi Rhodes and especially Marty Scurll, and it was expected that it was going to eventually turn Flip Gordon into a star by the end of this year.
The series created a lot of major storylines, most notably the Cody Rhodes vs. Kenny Omega story that played out more on the show than anywhere else, even if the big angles were shot in New Japan. It also helped bring its key characters to a new level of popularity, most notably Hangman Page, Brandi Rhodes and especially Marty Scurll, and it was expected that it was going to eventually turn Flip Gordon into a star by the end of this year.
By: Larry Causion Jr. CausionCreations.com
Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2018
Credit: Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Posted: Sunday, April 15, 2018
Credit: Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter