Things seem to be settling down to a more normal pace, at least in the wrestling world. Unfortunately, that’s not true of everything else in my life outside of the Sandwich. If I look on the bright side, though, at least I haven’t been coughing for five months. Seriously… am I the only one concerned at this point for Dave Meltzer’s lungs?
We have an in-depth look at the complete and utter meltdown of Wrestling Observer columnist Ben Miller on the site. At last look, he was still digging himself a hole, with some estimates putting him more than a quarter of the way to China by now.
You simply MUST check out the latest cartoon from our comic satirist MeatyFist, here.
Our own Hugh Little tells a tale of his early woes signing up for, and logging in to the PW Torch website, and how Wade Keller sprung to action to help fix the issues.
Our next edition of Talking Sheet will be recorded this weekend. You can listen to the current episode here.
Thursday News Update
** The day after the Wednesday Night Wars Era II and we already have ratings news for ROH and TNA on Destination America from last night.
F4Wonline took a very spartan look at the ratings here.
** PWTorch has its look here — which, interestingly, did a comparison by adding up combined totally viewers of both airings (each show aired twice last night)
The Comparison: ROH’s total combined audience was 247,000 vs. Impact’s total combined audience of 292,000 for a first-run edition of TNA’s top show that had an existing presence on Destination America. For ROH, it was their first time back on cable TV in over five years for a replay of their syndicated weekend TV show.
** PWInsider doubled up their coverage of the battle with a look at ROH’s ratings (and comparison to TNA) here.
** Their weekly look at TNA ratings here, with the headline and callout that they dropped to their lowest audience since coming to Destination America. Huh. Mike Johnson must’ve fallen out with Billy Corgan to underscore that little news nugget.
** Unfortunately, no news yet on how Lucha Underground
** Lots of details (well, match listings) for the next WWE Network special, which has been announced for July 4th from Japan.
** PWInsider’s Mike Johnson has a small bit on WWE tryouts this week, including names like TNA’s Jessica Havoc and Biff Busick attending.
** PWInsider’s Mike Johnson must’ve heard a radio spot today that excited him, because he wrote a news update earlier today about a then pending Taz appearance on TMZ Live about an hour an a have after the post was made (he posted the story just after noon, and said the appearance was scheduled for 1:30). The gist was that Taz would be talking about a CHARITY SOFTBALL GAME he played in. Wow. Couldn’t have waited for the recap on this one?
** Johnson also fielded some reader questions where he said he heard Sami Zayn is “not expected back until late Fall.” I can’t think of many more ways to make that more vague and noncommittal. How about ‘It’s said Zayn may possibly be out for as many as 6 months, but it expected back before the end of 2015’?
** That same report also features Johnson saying “maybe” to a reader question about whether Bray Wyatt’s recent interviews talking about going against the Man and battling the Machine might mean he’s going babyface to target the Authority.
** Sean Ross Sapp is back with another helpful recap of the latest Jim Ross blog, so I don’t have to Ross’ site to read it myself. Among other things, he gives his thoughts about the Cena-Owens feud. Unfortunately, he still hasn’t answered my question about whether he still wishes WWE had called the former Kevin Steen “Steen Owens” as he originally suggested. (What an awful name that would have been).
** Here’s a bit we must have missed the other day… WrestleZone has a report (citing PWInsider as its source) that Austin Aries’ TNA contract is up on June 29th. Funny how TNA re-signed Bram four times in 2015, but Aries is getting no love.
** F4Wonline News vs Plugs for today – News: 1584, Plugs 3109 (Impressive)
** Actually, interesting note here… I just happened to be reading the plugs for this week, on accident, and a couple caught my eye. According to Dave, the current edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter includes the following stories:
–Really weird stuff in TNA
–Contract singing announcements
** Wonder if the latter has anything to do with Impact show from last night opening with a quartet in the ring like I’ve heard.
