– The next edition of WrestleMania Rewind, which airs this coming Tuesday on the WWE Network, will look back at Chris Jericho’s performance against the WWE legends at WrestleMania 25, as well as his showdown with Edge at WrestleMania 26.
– The next edition of WWE Countdown, which also airs this coming Tuesday on the WWE Network, will look at the top ten factions in history.
– The Washington Times recently ran a piece that noted Vince McMahon and Linda McMahon have emerged as Republican “mega-donors.” According to public finance reports, the McMahon’s have donated approximately one million dollars to Republican candidates, party committees and super PACs this year, including Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts’ group Ending Spending.
– Below is the official synopsis for the next episode of WWE Legends House, which airs next Thursday on the WWE Network:
“The WWE Legends play a game of ‘How well do you know your roommates?’ Then the group receives a visit from Hall of Famer Shawn Michaels.”
– Today’s wrestling birthdays include Bo Dallas (24), Roman Reigns (29) and Alberto Del Rio (37).
– Friday’s episode of WWE SmackDown saw a huge drop in social media activity from the previous week. SmackDown had 416,000 Twitter users tweeting about the show (down 50%) and 1.273 million social impressions (down 45%). Despite the drop, it still ranked #2 for the night Twitter activity.
– Next Saturday night’s Beyond The Ring special on the WWE Network will feature Chris Jericho.
– Every RAW and SmackDown of 2014 through the beginning of April have been added to the WWE Network, so it appears WWE is able to add shows to the Network a month after they air under the new NBCUniversal deal.
– Hulk Hogan teased during a recent WWE App interview that he may be appearing on Legends House soon. Whether or not he was referring to the current season, which was filmed back in 2012, or a potential future taping of the series, is anyone’s guess.
– The official WWE website recently ran another ranking article, this time looking at the 25 greatest WWE Intercontinental Champions in history. The top ten of the list reads as follows:
10. Tito Santana
9. Randy Orton
8. Pedro Morales
7. Bret Hart
6. Razor Ramon
5. The Honky Tonk Man
4. Mr. Perfect
3. The Ultimate Warrior
2. Chris Jericho
1. Randy Savage
You can check out the complete list at WWE.com.
– The WWE Payback post-show on the WWE Network will only be a 30-minute show next Sunday night. WWE tried a one-hour post-show for the recent Extreme Rules pay-per-view, but ultimately felt like the show dragged on without a lot happening.
– The following is another clip of the new WWE “Greatest Factions” DVD and Blu-ray. This clip features former ECW faction, “Triple Threat.”
http://youtu.be/gbhs2_fuGUg
– While still unofficial, WWE has been planning on a Randy Orton vs. Dean Ambrose match for WWE RAW this coming Monday night in Knoxville, Tennessee.
– As we noted recently, Scott Hall checked himself into the hospital earlier this week, but has since been released. Hall will be shooting footage for the WWE Network on Tuesday in Atlanta, Georgia.
Paul Heyman and other “surprise guests” have been announced for the NXT Takeover pre-show next Thursday night.
The NXT Takeover pre-show will be hosted by Renee Young, and will also feature “Nature Boy” Ric Flair and Rob Van Dam. Flair, as noted in the past, will be in the corner of his daughter Charlotte for her NXT Divas Championship match.
NXT Takeover airs on Thursday, May 29th, live on the WWE Network. The pre-show begins at 7:30pm EST.
WWE CFO George Barrios took part in a presentation at the Global Technology, Media & Telecom conference in Boston, Massachusetts this week. Below are some highlights.
– The “Monday Night War” series will debut on the WWE Network “in the fall.”
– If WWE loses their PPV revenue stream completely, they will need 1.3-1.4 million subscribers to the WWE Network to offset the losses that would generate. They believe they can reach 2-4 million subscribers globally within 2-3 years.
– The company is monitoring the quality of the WWE Network “by the second” due to some early rough patches.
– On March 30th, the company had “about” 500,000 subscribers for the WWE Network, but by WrestleMania XXX on April 7th, they reached the 667,000 subscriber number that became public. The company will continue to announce subscription numbers at every quarterly call.
– Apple earns 30 percent of the profits generated through every subscription that comes through them. The same type of deal exists for other platforms, such as Roku.
– They have discussed running advertisements on the WWE Network, but have not yet made a decision as to whether or not they officially intend to go that route.
– WWE does not maintain credit cards on file from WWE Network subscriptions, they have other partners who process that material.
– Next week’s edition of WWE Countdown, which airs on Tuesday night on the WWE Network, the subject of the top-ten list will be greatest factions of all-time. The show is timed in conjunction with the release of WWE’s new “Greatest Factions” DVD and Blu-ray, which is also available on Tuesday.
– The following is a video from the official UFC On FOX YouTube channel that features WWE Hall Of Famer Jim Ross appearing on “UFC Tonight.”
http://youtu.be/Bv5V_FOxYy0
– WWE Hall Of Famer Shawn Michaels will be featured on next week’s edition of WWE Legends House, which airs Thursday night on the WWE Network.
– WWE reportedly refused ABC sitcom “The Goldbergs” the rights to any footage of The Ultimate Warrior for their tribute show to the late WWE Hall Of Famer. Warrior and his family were reportedly big fans of the series, and his wife and daughter were said to be touched by the tribute episode. Warrior’s daughters were actually invited onto The Goldbergs set for the filming of an episode next season.
Since WrestleMania season, there have been numerous reports regarding Sting and the possibility of him coming into WWE for a run with the company. At one point, it was considered to be a lock that he was signing and coming in, however with him still having yet to put pen-to-paper, there are some who are thinking that there’s at least a chance that he won’t end up signing when all is said and done.
Sting revealed in an interview a while back that he had discussions and negotiations with WWE several years ago and that he came close to signing a deal for 100 dates per year with the company. Ultimately, Sting ended up backing out on the deal while the offer was still officially on the table. There are some who are worried that could be the case again with the current negotiation.
At last word, Sting was still scheduled to work on several WWE Network and WWE DVD-related projects, for whatever that is worth.
(Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter)
– This week’s edition of WWE Countdown, which premiered on the WWE Network on Tuesday night, featured a look at the top ten memorable debuts in history. You can check out a preview for the show, which is available right now on the WWE Network, below.
– This week’s WrestleMania Rewind, which also aired on the WWE Network on Tuesday night, looked back at the WrestleMania V main event between Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage. You can check out a preview for that one below.
There was a lot of fear in WWE on Monday about how Vince McMahon would react to the implosion of WWE’s stock and the company losing approximately $350 million in value on Friday.
It’s said that Vince feels mislead by his management team that WWE would be getting a much better television deal than they ultimately got. Especially with Vince McMahon personally losing a lot of money and credibility on Wall Street, certain people will be held accountable.
The company taking such a massive hit in value has many people expecting the company to release talent to cut costs.
Internally, the company is disappointed with the number of WWE Network subscribers and the company is expected to make significant changes to how the Network is promoted.
(Information from PWInsider.com was used in this report)
– The official WWE website has a new article up featuring current WWE Superstars and WWE Divas naming their favorite wrestlers of all-time. You can check that out at WWE.com.
– The following is the official synopsis for this Thursday’s edition of WWE Legends House on the WWE Network:
“”When the WWE Legends engage a ruthless enemy in a game of live action role play (LARP), their strength as a group is tested.”
– It was announced on this week’s edition of WWE RAW, which was a taped show from the O2 Arena in London, England, that the headline match on this week’s edition of WWE Main Event, which airs live on the WWE Network on Tuesday night, will be Mark Henry vs. Cesaro.
– WWE revealed the ten most-watched shows on the WWE Network last week on RAW on Monday night. Below is a look at the latest top-ten:
1. WWE Main Event
2. WWE Slam City
3. WWE Legends House
4. RAW Pre-show
5. Extreme Rules 2014
6. WWE NXT
7. RAW Backstage Pass
8. WrestleMania Rewind
9. WrestleMania XXX
10. WWE Countdown
Lemelson Capital, LLC, a private investment management firm, announced today that they had taken a stake in shares of WWE stock and called on the Board of Directors to replace the “executive management team” of the company due to a period of consistent losses, execution issues and material misstatements.
Less than two months ago, WWE stock had climbed to $30.37 per share on March 17th, and as recently at today, the stock had dropped all the way down to $11.33 per share.
The firm today also reiterated that fair value of WWE’s common stock is between $8.25 and $11.88 with current management in place.
“WWE has affirmed that even with one million subscribers for its WWE network, the company stands to lose between $45 million and $52 million in FY 2014, which validates the original short thesis,” said Emmanuel Lemelson, Chief Investment Officer of Lemelson Capital Management. “This follows what we believe to be material misrepresentations by the company about both the performance and operating profit model of its WWE network, which the company has wrongly labeled ‘a homerun'”
For more details on this story, visit SeekingAlpha.com.
– The next edition of WWE Countdown, which airs this coming Tuesday night on the WWE Network, will focus on the top ten most memorable Superstar debuts in WWE history.
– Also on the WWE Network this Tuesday, the latest edition of WrestleMania Rewind will take a look back at the memorable showdown between Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage from WrestleMania V. This episode was originally scheduled to air this past Tuesday night, but for whatever reason was pushed back a week.
Following Thursday’s edition of WWE NXT TV, the following matches are confirmed for the upcoming NXT Takeover live special, which airs on the WWE Network on May 29th:
WWE NXT Championship
– Adrian Neville (c) vs. Tyson Kidd
WWE NXT Championships
– The Ascension vs. Kalisto & El Local
Vacant NXT Women’s Championship
– Charlotte vs. Natalya or Sasha Banks
– The reason a lot of WCW theme music is now being used on the WWE Network is because of the settlement of a lawsuit by Jimmy Papa, the guy who produced a lot of the music for WCW and World Class Championship Wrestling.
– There have been reports of pay-grumbling from WWE referees recently. The problem is the referees are having trouble financially with road expenses and recent declines in payoffs.
(Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter)
The one-dollar increase in price for Netflix is something to keep a close eye on, as far as possible changes to WWE Network’s subscription rates in the future.
At a one-dollar price increase, if WWE were to do it, it would bring in an extra $7 million per year in revenue, which would offset some of the losses if the numbers fail to reach the estimated expectations.
Netflix and Amazon have both recently increased their prices, and the only reason WWE and UFC didn’t follow suit was because Netflix established a low price point as the value of a streaming service.
With the first round of WWE Network subscriptions coming due on September 2nd, WWE is looking to beef up their Night Of Champions pay-per-view on September 21st.
As expected, Brock Lesnar will be returning to work the SummerSlam pay-per-view in August, and will reportedly stay and work a two-show program through the Night Of Champions show.
(Credit: Wrestling Observer Newsletter)
– Once again, there will be no WWE SmackDown post-show on the WWE Network this coming Friday night. There will, however, be the usual pre-show prior to SmackDown.
– As previously reported, former WWE Superstar Chris Masters claimed in a recent interview that he feels Cesaro did not legitimately slam Big Show at WrestleMania XXX earlier this year. He claims Big Show jumped for him, and even went as far as to say if Cesaro can slam Big Show, he could press him over his head. Masters ended up taking a lot of backlash for his comments on Twitter, which finally led to him posting the following tweet:
Why is everybody hot about Cesaro?I was messing around and being sarcastic.He is a stand out great talent in WWE!!
— Chris Masters (@ChrisMasters310) May 13, 2014
– The latest edition of Steve Austin’s “Steve Austin Show,” which features a Q&A with Eric Bischoff, is now available. The official description for the show reads as follows:
SASc – EP115 – Eric Bischoff Q&A
“You had questions for Eric Bischoff… and he had answers! Does he regret firing Steve Austin from WCW? Was Bret Hart really a good fit for WCW? Who’s Eric’s favorite wrestler? What are Eric’s thoughts on Bill Goldberg’s streak & how was he to deal with? Will Eric ever return to WWE in any capacity? Check out the Steve Austin and Eric Bischoff Q&A now!”
You can download the show right now at PodcastOne.com.
– The following is a WWE Countdown Extra featuring Santino Marella.
– The following is the latest list of the top ten most watched shows on the WWE Network for this past week:
1. Extreme Rules 2014
2. Legends House
3. RAW Pre-show
4. WrestleMania Rewind
5. WWE Countdown: Greatest Villains
6. Extreme Rules 2014 Fallout
7. WWE Main Event
8. ECW Hardcore TV
9. WWE NXT
10. WrestleMania XXX
– The National Entertainment Collectibles Association will be releasing a Bret Hart action figure as part of their new “The Simpsons 25th Anniversary: Celebrity Guest Stars” series. You can check out a photo of Hart’s action figure below.
– CM Punk will be singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” at this Saturday’s Chicago Cubs game (5/17).
– The original Sin Cara worked an indie event in Mexico City this past Saturday night. He worked as “Sin Cara.”
– During an interview with BleacherReport.com, WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler revealed that he’s currently negotiating with WWE to bring the Memphis Wrestling tape library the WWE Network.