Our latest episode of Talking Sheet, recorded earlier today, is now available on the site. We have a detailed look at reports of Raw Ratings Doom from various angles presented over the past week, coverage of the latest TNA turmoil, including a scathing article by PWTorch’s Bruce Mitchell, and Bob Ryder’s increasingly unhinged Twitter tantrums. Hugh gives his Views for the week, including the most deserving Power Ranking #1 yet. Then we hop back in time for a rundown of the Wrestling Observer newsletter from March 9th, 1987.
Also on the site from the last few days, we have a report on David Bixenspan calling out Mike Johnson of PWInsider on Twitter for being late to the party when it comes to reporting on Brock Lesnar’s travel companion on his trip to Japan, including background on animosity between Bix and PWInsider of the years here.
We also have a look at Bryan Alvarez’s recent return to the Daily Update in a fill-in capacity for Bixenspan earlier this week, including a mysterious news entry as yet unexplained, and the editing of the usual wall of plugs from the update that made some readers very happy.
We’ll have the long awaited fourth installment of Deep Insider up on the site tomorrow, looking at the audio show offerings from the site, including a familiar voice in unfamiliar territory.
Friday Wrestling News Update
** Kyle Johnson over at F4Wonline has a great look at why it’s time for WWE to pull the trigger and do something serious with Cesaro here.
** Gerry Mehaffy has a conversation with Georgia Smith, daughter of the late British Bulldog, Davey Boy Smith, and Harry Smith’s sister exclusively for F4Wonline.com
** F4Wonline ran a story regarding WWE’s announcement that they’d be running an NXT show at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY on 8/22 – the night before SummerSlam. The show will go head-to-head with ROH’s Field of Honor show in the area
** This news caused another near meltdown for occasional F4Wonline contributor Ben Miller, who tweeted “NXT is just “ROH, done right”. Even down to running the night before SummerSlam & Mania (which they’ll do in 2016).”
** This caused Dave Meltzer to wade into the fray, replying to Miller, “Yeah, if ROH had the ability to lose millions a year and nobody blinked. Easy to “do right” when you don’t have to turn profit”
** Miller went on to suggest there were money marks available to invest in ROH should they want it bad enough: “there are so many rich people out there who grew up loving wrestling and who would love to invest. ROH has had opps to grow.”
** To which Meltzer replied: “Let me know one of them, I’ll pass them onto Joe Koff.”
** ProWrestling.Net reported that TNA executive Andy Barton was leaving the company, noting Barton had been with Dixie Carter in a professional capacity since 1996, and moved with her to TNA in 2002.
** Meltzer in today’s Daily Update on F4Wonline.com characterized Barton’s departure as a bigger story than TNA is letting on, writing:
“The Andy Barton departure from TNA is a far bigger story than is being played up. Barton has been with Dixie Carter since 1996, long before TNA ,and was described to me as the person who would know more about the state of the company than anyone except Dixie Carter.”
** ProWrestling.net has a decent write up of results from the 7/3 WWE show in Japan where Finn Balor faced off with Chris Jericho
** In one of the stupider things I’ve seen in a long time, WrestleZone took their mindless copy/paste mentality to a whole new low when they ran a repeat of the Mike Johnson PWInsider story “reporting” that Brock Lesnar would be traveling to Japan with Brad Rheingans… problem is, WrestleZone reported that same news back on May 29th when Dave Meltzer first gave us word that Lesnar and Rheingans were headed to Japan together to visit Masa Saito.
** PWTorch’s James Caldwell has CHIKARA King of Trios updates, including 2014 tournament winners Devastation Corp entering this year’s King of Trios to defend their titles
** PWInsider’s Mike Johnson has an update on WWE 2K16, and their reported plans to include 120 playable characters in the game. According to Johnson, 2K Sports is working hard to include the most up to date roster ever for a wrestling game
** WrestlingInc.com has a report that the NWA Classics 24/7 streaming service is now live and taking subscriptions at NWAClassics.com
** PWTorch and PWInsider both have updates on Kurt Angle’s next tumor and how long he’s expected to miss action due to his surgery, from a report on Angle’s own website.
** Bob Ryder took to Twitter on Thursday in a major tantrum over the fact that Pro Wrestling Illustrated had stripped the TNA championship of its world title status. Among his biggest complains was how PWI editor Al Castle, a guy “with only 284 followers on Twitter” should be given a platform to knock TNA.
** We talked a bit about this on Talking Sheet today, and I’ll have more on this Ryder Twitter Tantrum situation in an upcoming column this weekend, but suffice it to say, that he constantly references the number of twitter followers someone has to gauge their authority or credibility speaks volumes about what kind of delusional piece of work this guy is.
** He also failed to mention Dixie Carter’s countless retweeting of positive Slammiversary posts from obvious shell accounts with a handful of followers apiece to artificially bloat the amount of great feedback the show got.
** We’ll be back tomorrow with a complete rundown of all the Beast in the East coverage from the WWE Network exclusive show from Japan early AM Sunday morning.
