Originally published at https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/11/pollocks-news-update-ratings-for-week-1-of-the-xfl/
POST IT NOTES
**This week’s edition of Rewind-A-Raw is a loaded show with tons of news. Wai Ting and I discussed WrestleMania at SoFi Stadium, XFL ratings, New Japan’s big matches over the next month, Simone Johnson, AEW updates, and more. Plus, a full review of Monday’s episode of Raw featuring Shayna Baszler’s attack on Becky Lynch and your feedback at the end of the show.
**Wai Ting is joined by Nate Milton on the POST Wrestling Café for the monthly MCU review covering Black Panther. The show is already up for all Patrons.
**Nate will also be back this Saturday with this month’s edition of The Rocky Maivia Picture Show. This month, he covers “Fast Five” with guests Joe Lewandowski and Joe Two from the 2 Fast 2 Forever podcast.
**Andrew Thompson has a great interview with Session Moth Martina that he conducted this past Sunday at the ROH Free Enterprise event. In the chat, she discussed her hesitation to go to NXT UK after taking part in their tryouts, her thoughts on those that have joined NXT UK, the inclusion of Stardom at Wrestle Kingdom last month, her time in OTT and inter-gender wrestling.
**Wai Ting and I are back on Wednesday night with Rewind-A-Dynamite while Braden Herrington & Davie Portman will have a new edition of upNXT.
POST WRESTLING VIDEO
WRESTLING NEWS
**There is a local ad promoting the participants of the Elimination Chamber match for next month in Philadelphia. One person with knowledge of the card tells us that there will likely be changes to that lineup with some of the names serving as placeholders. The local ad is listing Roman Reigns, Braun Strowman, Daniel Bryan, Shinsuke Nakamura, King Corbin, and Robert Roode for the match. It is expected that there will be six participants in the match as they’ve had most years. The Elimination Chamber card takes place on Sunday, March 8th and therefore, they have two episodes of SmackDown and one Raw between pay-per-views.
**The numbers are in for the first weekend of the XFL and the league got off to a strong start.
Saturday’s opening game between Seattle and DC averaged 3,302,000 viewers on ABC (1,366,000 in the 18-49 demo). Later that evening, Los Angeles vs. Houston did 3,290,000 viewers on Fox (1,418,000).
The games on Saturday were two of the top three network programs among the 18-49 demo with the 2 pm game doing a 1.1 and the 5 pm game did a 1.1. The XFL games only trailed Saturday Night Live in the demo rating.
Sunday’s games featured Tampa Bay and New York on Fox averaging 3,385,000 (1,336,000 in 18-49) followed by ESPN’s coverage of St. Louis vs. Dallas that did 2,495,000 viewers.
Sunday’s afternoon game on Fox did 1,336,000 viewers in the 18-49 demo (1.0) and was second for the day among network programming only trailing the Oscars. The afternoon game also did a 0.8 in the 18-34 demo, which only trailed the Oscars.
The ESPN game on Sunday averaged 1,211,000 (0.93) in the 18-49 demo, which was the top cable program for the day and second for total viewers.
**This weekend’s games begin Saturday with the DC Defenders vs. New York Guardians at 2 pm ET on ABC followed by the Tampa Bay Vipers vs. Seattle Dragons at 5 pm on Fox. Sunday’s games start with the Dallas Renegades vs. L.A. Wildcats at 3 pm on ABC and the Houston Roughnecks vs. Seattle Battlehawks at 6 pm on FS 1. This weekend is the first game to run on FS 1 and that number will be interesting because it’s easily the weakest channel but the counter to that is that the XFL could boost viewership and create more value for FS 1. The story of Week 2 is going to be the follow-up viewership after a good start in the first week and whether that was a curiosity, or if this product has sustained interest for football fans to come back.
**WWE held a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday to formally announce WrestleMania coming to the market in March 2021. Stephanie McMahon, Roman Reigns, Becky Lynch, and John Saboor were among those in attendance for the announcement. Becky Lynch was wearing a bandage on the back of her neck to sell the attack from Shayna Baszler on Raw. We will be discussing the press conference with Yahoo’s Marcus Vanderberg this Thursday at 3 pm ET on the Café Hangout that he covered today at SoFi Stadium.
**Monday’s angle involving Randy Orton and Matt Hardy came off as the end of Hardy’s run with a Conchairto delivered by Orton. Pro Wrestling Sheet is reporting that is the case with Hardy’s deal set to expire next month. Hardy has not been shy in teasing his departure from the company after returning to WWE in April 2017 for a memorable entrance with brother Jeff. The segment on Monday came off great with Hardy cutting a fantastic promo before the RKO and Conchairto to write him out.
**Mike Johnson at PWinsider.com reports that Jeff Hardy will be at the WWE Performance Center next week for an evaluation after being sidelined since last May. Jeff’s deal does not end at the same time as Matt’s as Jeff has had time tacked on due to injuries. He is also set to appear in court on Monday, April 6th (the day after WrestleMania) to address his DWI from last fall.
**The WWE stock closed at $42.74 on Tuesday.
**The Clarion Ledger has a story on Brett Dibiase’s arrest and the charges he faces for an alleged embezzlement scheme in Mississippi. Dibiase was hired in February 2017 as the deputy administrator for the Mississippi Department of Human Services and would re-sign in September that year, although maintained a connection with the agency through a non-profit group called Families First for Mississippi. The allegations focus on $48,000 being funneled to Dibiase along with other crimes.
**Below is a preview of tonight’s episode of NWA Power that streams at 6:05 pm Eastern:
*Footage from ROH Free Enterprise this past Sunday in Baltimore
*Nick Aldis & Royce Isaacs vs. The Rock ‘N’ Roll Express
*Ricky Starks vs. Matt Cross for the NWA Television title
*Melina vs. Tasha Steelz
*Thom Latimer vs. Tim Storm
*The Bouncers vs. The Dawsons
*Marti Belle confronts Allysin Kay
**Here are the matches for AEW Dark streaming at 7 pm Eastern tonight from last week’s tapings in Huntsville, Alabama:
*Jimmy Havoc vs. Sonny Kiss
*Dark Order vs. Marko Stunt & Jungle Boy
*Hikaru Shida vs. Cassandra Golden
**Here are the matches for tonight’s edition of Impact Wrestling at 8 pm Eastern on AXS TV from the tapings in Mexico City:
*Taya Valkyrie vs. Jordynne Grace for the Knockout’s title
*Michael Elgin vs. Eddie Edwards in Match #2 of their Best-of-Five series
*Rob Van Dam vs. Joey Ryan
*Ethan Page vs. Fallah Bahh
*Madman Fulton vs. Daga
*Willie Mack vs. Mahabali Shera
**Charlotte Flair is the guest on WWE Backstage tonight at 11 pm Eastern on FS 1.
**Last Wednesday’s edition of AEW did 468,000 viewers on TNT in the 18-49 demo and an overall average of 928,000 viewers. Friday Night SmackDown did 2,538,000 viewers with 976,000 viewers in the 18-49 demo on Fox.
**The WWE Performance Center’s YouTube channel will be releasing a four-episode series chronicling Tegan Nox’s comeback beginning on Wednesday with a new episode out each day and the final one coming out Saturday.
**All Japan announced the lineup of participants for their annual Champion Carnival this spring. The tournament begins April 6th at Korakuen Hall and runs through May 5th with the shows airing on AJPW.tv. There will be eighteen shows over the course of the month. Among the 18 names in the Carnival is Davey Boy Smith Jr.
**Drew McIntyre spoke with BBC about becoming the first Scottish wrestler to win the WWE title.
**Game Changer Wrestling is going to the UK this summer. The popular promotion has announced dates for August 27-29 in Liverpool, England at Hangar 34 with ticket information to be released later. GCW is teaming with TNT Extreme Wrestling for the shows.
**Jeff Cobb is set to make his debut for Black Label Pro against Jake Something during WrestleMania week. The two will face off at ‘Threat Level Midnight’ on Friday, April 3rd at 11:59 pm at The Cuban Club in Tampa.
**Neilsen has conducted a study that shows in the fourth quarter of 2019, 19% of viewers watching TV spent that time on a streaming service. The study doesn’t include those watching on tablets or mobile devices and only monitored streaming on televisions. Of the streaming services, Netflix leads the way with 31% with connected-TV viewing followed by YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon. The study noted that 91% of the people that responded subscribe to a streaming service with 96% among those 18-34. It notes that 30% of consumers in the United States subscriber to three or more services.
Among adults over the age of 18, average daily viewing for live and time-shifted programs on TV fell 7% in the third quarter of 2019 at 3 hours and 56 minutes per day. Time spent watching connected-TV devices increased 17% to 55 minutes per day while viewing on smartphones increased 45% to sixteen minutes per day and viewing on computers stayed the same at seven minutes per day.
**AAW has added a women’s title match between champion Kris Statlander and Jody Threat to their next show on Friday, February 21st at the Logan Square Auditorium in Chicago.
**Here is the Hiromu Takahashi promo we referenced on Rewind-A-Raw ahead of Sunday’s match with Ryu Lee in Osaka.
**The next edition of WWE 24 will profile R-Truth and is set to premiere on the WWE Network following Super ShowDown on Thursday, February 27th.
**EVOLVE has added a pair of matches to their February 29th card in Queens, New York and the next night in Melrose, Massachusetts. In Queens, there will be a grudge match between Joe Gacy and Colby Corino and a #1 contender’s match with AR Fox & Leon Ruff vs. Adrian Alanis & Liam Gray and the winners receive a tag title shot on March 15th in Chicago against The Besties in the World. On March 1st at the Melrose show, JD Drake takes on Curt Stallion and Joe Gacy will face Anthony Gutierrez.
**SHINE will hold its next event on February 29th in Queens in the afternoon prior to the EVOLVE show. It’s headlined by SHINE champion Ivelisse defending against Lindsay Snow along with Natalia Markova vs. Brandi Lauren for the SHINE Nova championship, and Marti Belle & Jayme Jameson defend the SHINE tag titles against Brittany Blake & Avery Taylor.
**MLW has released tickets for their return to the NYTEX Sports Centre in North Richland Hills, Texas on Saturday, May 2nd.
**The latest edition of We are Stardom episode features Arisa Hoshiki vs. Konami for the Wonder of Stardom title and Momo Watanabe, Utami Hayashashita & AZM vs. Tam Nakano, Saki Kashima & Starlight Kid for the Artist of Stardom titles from December 24th at Korakuen Hall.
**AEW’s Road to Austin preview for Wednesday night’s episode:
**Chris Van Vliet’s latest interview is a nearly 90-minute chat with ROH champion PCO:
**Dwayne Johnson comments on his daughter Simone officially signing with WWE:
MMA NEWS
**The UFC 247 prelims on Saturday night averaged 1,491,000 viewers on ESPN featuring Trevin Giles vs. James Krause in the featured fight. This was a solid figure that topped all the UFC’s pay-per-view prelims throughout 2019. In comparison, last month’s prelims leading into Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone averaged 1,767,000 viewers. This past weekend’s prelims were up 30% from the last time Jon Jones fought on pay-per-view, which was UFC 239 last July with 1,145,000 watching the prelims. Kevin Iole of Yahoo added that the UFC 247 prelims peaked with 2,065,000 viewers.
**The subject of open scoring in MMA has been a continual one and ramped up following UFC 247 this past weekend. Marc Raimondi at ESPN reports that the Kansas Athletic Commission is going to be the first commission to introduce open scoring at the discretion of the promotions. Adam Roorbach of the Kansas commission tells Raimondi that open scoring will be made available at the discretion of the promoters to use for all its fights, certain fights on the card, or not at all and just use the traditional method. The plan would be for scores to be revealed after each round to the broadcast team, the fighter’s cornermen, and the fans in attendance. Invicta FC has added that they will utilize open scoring for their next card on Friday, March 6th in Kansas. Their card is headlined by bantamweights Lisa Verzosa and Julija Stoliarenko.
**Former UFC women’s flyweight champion Nicco Montano is off this Saturday’s Fight Night card in Rio Rancho, New Mexico where she set to fight Macy Chiasson. The news was reported by MMA Fighting with Montano’s manager Ricky Kottenstette revealing she suffered a grade 2 sprain of her MCL. Montano will be replaced by 28-year old Shanna Young, who is 7-2 and is coming off a decision win over Maiju Suotama for Invicta FC last November.
**UFC fighter Michel Prazeres has accepted a two-year sanction from USADA after testing positive for exogenous boldenone and its metabolite. Prazeres was tested on March 9, 2019 out-of-competition with two samples provided. He is eligible to return on March 9, 2021. Prazeres will turn 39 in July and has fought for the UFC since May 2013. Inside the UFC, he has gone 10-3 including an eight-fight winning streak over the course of three years until his last fight that he lost by decision to Ismail Naurdiev in February 2019. He was competing as a lightweight but missed several times and moved back to welterweight for his last three fights.
**MMA Junkie’s Danny Segura reports that heavyweight Justin Willis has signed with the PFL and will compete in the forthcoming heavyweight tournament this year. Willis is 8-1 and fought for the UFC since 2017 going 4-1 with the promotion. Willis won four fights in a row, including a unanimous decision over Mark Hunt before losing his last fight to Curtis Blaydes by unanimous decision last March.
**Todd Martin looks at the judging from Saturday’s UFC 247 card, specifically the scores turned in from Joe Solis for Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes, Trevin Giles vs. James Krause, and Andre Ewell vs. Jonathan Martinez, which left many people mystified.
*****
REWIND-A-RAW 2/10/20: Becky the Vampire Slayer
John Pollock and Wai Ting review WWE Raw featuring Shayna Baszler’s bloody attack. Plus, WrestleMania 37 goes Hollywood, Brandi Rhodes speaks about her exit from The Nightmare Collective, and Simone Johnson reports to the WWE PC.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/11/rar-2-10-20-becky-the-vampire-slayer/
*****
NJPW New Beginning in Osaka 2020 POST Show
John Pollock & Wai Ting review the NJPW New Beginning in Osaka card from this past weekend as Tetsuya Naito makes the first defense of the Double Championship against KENTA, plus Jon Moxley vs. Minoru Suzuki, and Hiromu Takahashi vs. Ryu Lee.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/09/njpw-new-beginning-in-osaka-2020-post-show/
*****
THUNDERSTRUCK: Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Brian Pillman (9/4/1995)
WH Park and Nate Milton of POST Wrestling’s The Rocky Maivia Picture Show come together for the first time ever to review the historical first-ever match on the first-ever episode of WCW Nitro – Jushin Liger vs. Brian Pillman from September 4th, 1995.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/09/thunderstruck-16-jushin-liger-vs-brian-pillman-9-4-95-w-nate-milton/
*****
UFC 247 POST SHOW: Jon Jones vs. Dominick Reyes
John Pollock & Phil Chertok present the UFC 247 POST Show recapping Saturday’s card from Houston, Texas with Jon Jones and Valentina Shevchenko defending their championships.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/09/ufc-247-post-show-jon-jones-vs-dominick-reyes/
*****
REWIND-A-SMACKDOWN: Goldberg challenges The Fiend
Wai Ting is back for a solo review of WWE SmackDown as Goldberg returns to challenge “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt at Super ShowDown.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/07/rewind-a-smackdown-2-7-20-goldberg-challenges-the-fiend/
*****
BWE 2/7/20: Progress 101 & 102, Worlds Collide, Ospreay vs. ZSJ, Timothy Thatcher
Martin, Benno, and Jamesie are back to discuss Progress Ch. 101/102, NXT vs. NXT UK Worlds Collide, OTT Take Me To Your Leader, Will Ospreay vs. ZSJ, the latest with RevPro and more.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/07/bwe-2-7-20-progress-101-102-worlds-collide-ospreay-vs-zsj-timothy-thatcher/
*****
Café Hangout: WWE Q4 and Full Year 2019 Results w/ Brandon Thurston
John Pollock and Wai Ting are joined by Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston to discuss WWE’s Q4 and Full Year 2019 Results and Investor’s Earnings Call.
https://www.postwrestling.com/2020/02/06/live-link-cafe-hangout-w-wrestlenomics-brandon-thurston-3pm-et/
*****
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