[Emperor Smeat]

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Originally Posted by Observer Buoyed by the return of Vince McMahon to television, SmackDown on Tuesday night did its best viewership since April and the fourth highest number of the year. The show averaged 2.754 million viewers, good for second on the night on cable in both total viewership and the 18-49 demo ... SmackDown ratings were up seven percent from last week and were up almost four percent year-over-year.

Originally Posted by Observer After being delayed due to Hurricane Irma, ratings for this week's Raw are in -- and despite the opening night of Monday Night Football on ESPN, ratings were essentially even from the previous week. They were also up over eight percent from the same week in 2016. The show averaged 2.897 million viewers, down less than one percent from last week's average of 2.916 million. In both total viewership and the 18-49 demo, Raw was second for the night on cable behind the two NFL games on ESPN. Raw opened with 3.022 million viewers in hour one. It dropped slightly to 2.987 million for the second hour, then fell all the way to 2.699 million viewers for hour three. The drop of 10.7 percent from hour two to three was a worse drop than usual.

Originally Posted by Observer Lio Rush arrived in NXT at tonight's television tapings. Rush made his in-ring debut against Velveteen Dream, who was formerly his tag team partner in their pre-WWE days. Rush quickly got a standing ovation, but he lost when Velveteen Dream hit a hop-up elbow drop. The match was a result of Rush being attacked by Velveteen Dream earlier in the night when making his first appearance in NXT. That attack stopped Rush from facing Aleister Black, and Velveteen Dream continued his storyline with Black by taunting him after defeating Rush. WWE announced Rush's signing as he reported to the Performance Center in August. He finished up his indie dates shortly before that, including having his final matches for EVOLVE, CZW, and MCW. Rush previously left Ring of Honor in April.

Originally Posted by Observer NXT is taping its next round of television episodes at Full Sail University tonight. Shane Thorne returned for his first match since suffering a knee injury in January as TM61 faced Wesley Blake & Steve Cutler. Triple H also did a promo thanking everyone for being there after Hurricane Irma and saying that the area is NXT’s home as well. Shayna Baszler is backstage at tonight’s tapings.

Originally Posted by Observer Some live reports from the show in Hawaii indicated that Kofi Kingston may have suffered a knee injury in a match where The New Day defended their tag titles against Dolph Ziggler & Baron Corbin, though Kingston was able to get through it and finish the match.

Originally Posted by PWI WWE Network Flashback Friday tommorrow will take a look at Goldberg's 20-year career. Take a journey throughout the 20-year career of @Goldberg TOMORROW as @WWENetwork presents @WWE #FlashbackFriday! https://t.co/9nwHvlmHkn — WWE (@WWE) September 14, 2017

Link with list of the episodes for this week's Flashback Friday: http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...-for-tomorrow/

Originally Posted by PWI Jim Cornette also clarified that he will indeed be at the November Impact TV tapings post-Bound for Glory and that the two sides are negotiating on how many days he will actually be at the next set of TV as Cornette said he cannot be there for the full week. Cornette explained that his role was never intended to be long-term and full-time work and made it clear that as long as the company wants him involved Jim is open to it. Cornette was originally brought in to replace Bruce Prichard at the August TV tapings as Prichard had outside conflicts that week.

From a recent episode of Cornette's podcast show.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc After three straight weeks, there will be no in-ring confrontation between John Cena and Roman Reigns on RAW this Monday. Cena is not booked for Monday's No Mercy go-home episode of RAW in San Jose since he will be heading to China this weekend for Sunday's SmackDown live event in Shenzen. It is a 17+ hour flight from Shenzen to San Jose. As noted, Brock Lesnar is also not scheduled for Monday's RAW, while Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman are scheduled for the show.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc For today only, you can get 30% off select t-shirts at WWEShop.com by clicking here and using code TSHIRT30 at checkout. The sale ends Thursday, September 14th at 11:59 pm PT.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated recently interviewed The Young Bucks, Matt and Nick Jackson. Below are a few highlights: WWE sending them a cease and desist order to prevent them from using the "Suck it!" catchphrase: Matt: "They're bringing people back from the dead [Adam Cole, who was killed on their Being The Elite series]. They're sending out cease and desists written on toilet paper. And now they've taken our dear friend Hangman [Adam Page]. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it felt like they were trying to go to war with us." Nick: "The WWE apparently can bring people back from the dead. That shocked me to my core. I'm very happy for the ghost of Adam Cole though. I hope he makes millions of dollars one day."

More highlights and link to the interview itself: http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/...desist-letter/

Originally Posted by WrestleInc We noted before that WWE's "1997: Dawn of the Attitude" DVD and Blu-ray that comes out on October 3rd will feature a roundtable with Kane and WWE Hall of Famers Shawn Michaels, The Godfather, Ron Simmons and Mick Foley. Renee Young will host the discussion. WrestlingDVDNetwork.com reports that the roundtable will have a runtime of 58 minutes and will make up the entire disc 1 of the set.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc WWE has a poll asking fans what other type of tournament they would like to see on the WWE Network - Tag Team, Women's, Heavyweight, Hardcore Rules, Six-Man Tag Team, WWE Germany Title or Celebrity. As of this writing, 43% voted for Hardcore Rules while 20% voted for another Women's tournament, 11% went with Heavyweight, 9% went with Tag Team, 8% voted for Celebrity and 6% voted for Six-Man.

Originally Posted by Observer Nordholm also revealed that Anthem did not have a concrete business plan upon purchasing the company, and that different avenues are still being explored to generate more revenue. He also confirmed that the company is struggling to break even. Although Nordholm did not touch on this in the interview, GFW/Impact moved to Skyway Studios last summer and split production with their warehouse in Nashville, Tennessee. The warehouse in Nashville is now closed and all operations are based out of Canada in another cost-cutting measu

Originally Posted by Observer Sane over Toni Storm was the originally penciled in finish before the tournament started, which was switched to a semifinal when the plans were made to go all out with Sane and Baszler with the Horsewomen angle. One person close to the situation said in the end, the idea was done early in the week to make the final night about Sane and save the Horsewomen angle for later with the decision to go with Sane being made most likely on Monday.

Originally Posted by WrestleInc Dave Meltzer reported in the latest edition of The Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Vince getting busted open was planned. The hypocrisy of the angle was noted, as other wrestlers have been fined for blading. Batista was fined $100,000 for bleeding in a cage match with Chris Jericho in 2008. It is unknown just how the cut happened. While there is a chance that the blood could have been a result of a hardway shot, Meltzer noted that it was unlikely because you can't guarantee blood from a single headbutt. Meltzer wrote that people that he spoke to that have been in the business for decades believe that Vince bladed before the segment and covered it up with nu-skin, which would lead to the wound re-opening with a lot of blood. It was noted that you could see the difference in the skin where the cut was opened from a close-up freeze frame.

Originally Posted by Observer There was someone who gets all the WWE finishes that made a killing at SummerSlam because not enough smart money came for them to adjust the line, and also, none of the actual finishes were changed at the last minute. He did a $3.36 parlay on ten matches, all of which he got right, and won $45,600. That was a key thing where I mentioned after the show that a lot of the gambling sites were considering dropping WWE because insiders that knew could make a lot of money and that level money was ridiculous. The company that got hammered hasn’t done parlays in a long time, and won’t be doing them again. It was noted that the one guy alone may kill the landscape because companies don’t want to open themselves up for those kind of losses in what is usually considered a minor fun thing of having odds on pro wrestling matches. It also should be noted that there are WWE talents betting heavily which is where some sites recognize and switch the odds when those bets come in

Originally Posted by Observer Right now WWE has four clear major stars that they are protecting, Cena, Strowman, Brock Lesnar and Roman Reigns. All are on the Raw brand, so the lip service to separate but equal which was said leading into the latest brand split during the summer of 2016 is clearly out the window. Of those big four who in some form are likely to headline WrestleMania, there are now no new fresh matches. Lesnar and Reigns has been the plan since March or earlier for the 2018 WrestleMania main event, but plans change regularly and there was a time when that match was moved to SummerSlam. Then, because Samoa Joe did so well in his originally scheduled one-and-done program with Lesnar, the decision was made to change SummerSlam to a four-way.

Originally Posted by Observer ROH Final Battle, which is traditionally the company’s biggest PPV show of the year, is officially on 12/15 at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. That should be the next PPV after the 9/22 show in Las Vegas Will Ospreay is returning to ROH in October. He’ll be working on the combined NJPW & ROH shows that month as well as the show in Philadelphia. He’s also working on most of the November shows

Originally Posted by Observer Eddie Colon (Primo), 34, who has been out of action since June due to knee surgery, should be back imminently. Epico has been kept off television although has been working the house shows regularly with Primo out of action. It is possible they could be the mystery team plugged into the Breezango storyline that has stalled and gone into reverse, although there are still those in the company who have said the plan when the storyline was first executed was Harper & Rowan back together, and they have also not been used on television in months

Some other sheet news includes:

• In a "WWE Did You Know" type fact, today is the 1 year anniversary of TJ Perkins winning the Cruiserweight Classic and becoming the new Cruiserweight Champion.
• In another "WWE Did You Know" type fact, Miz recently passed the Honky Tonk Man to become the 3rd longest reigning IC champ in terms of total days in WWE history. Miz only needs another 87 days to pass Pedro Morales for most combined days all-time as IC champion.
• CBS Sports had a recent interview with the Young Bucks talking about their careers, the Hardy Boys, and Marty Scurll joining Bullet Club. http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/09/...tling-sherpas/