According to The Wrestling Observer, here are the top 20 most-viewed WWE Network shows for the week ending 5/12:
20. A video of The Rock
19. Warrior’s Greatest Matches
18. WWE Ride Along with Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, Paige and Alicia Fox
17. Table For 3 with Horsemen
16. WrestleMania 31
15. Royal Rumble 2016
14. NXT from two weeks earlier
13. RAW from a month earlier
12. Making of Camp WWE
11. Table For 3 with Pat Patterson, Hillbilly Jim, Ricky Steamboat
10. NXT “Takeover: Dallas”
9. Beyond The Ring on The Kliq
8. The E&C Show from the week before
7. Camp WWE
6. WrestleMania 32
5. NXT from the week before
4. WWE Payback
3. Table For 3 with The Kliq
2. The Edge and Christian Show
1. WWE NXT
– The next installment of “Legends with JBL” will be a two-part special with WWE Hall of Famer Booker T. They will begin airing on the WWE Network later this month.
– Dolph Ziggler will be appearing on FOX Business program “Kennedy” this Thursday night.
– David Otunga is filming a new project with Tyler Perry for the Oprah Winfrey Network, as seen in this photo:
– Reddit user bootybootybootyrocki noted that Extreme Rules will be Charlotte’s 11th straight PPV match – the longest streak of PPV appearances by a woman in WWE history:
“During the uni-branded PPV era of 03-07, I’ve only counted the PPVs of each brand. For example, if a particular woman was on Raw, only Raw PPVs will be factored into a streak, unless she happened to wrestle on a SmackDown PPV, in which case that will be added to the streak. The Big 4 PPVs featured all brands, so those were always factored. Even with all that in account, Charlotte still holds the longest streak. I have to imagine, barring injuries or some craziness with the title, even if Charlotte loses on Sunday, she will get a rematch at Money in the Bank, making it her 12th straight PPV.”
– Tonight’s WWE TV tapings will be held at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, SC. Confirmed as of this writing is MizTV with Cesaro, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. As always, we’ll have live coverage of the tapings here at SEScoops.
– The Dudley Boyz will be filming an episode of Ride Along for the WWE Network this weekend.
Me and @TestifyDVon will be filming an episode of @wwe "Ride Along" this weekend. What would the @WWEUniverse like us to talk about? #RAW RT
– Emma’s ruptured disc actually came during the May 8th WWE live event in Rio Rancho, NM, where she teamed with Lana and lost to Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch. Here are comments from Sasha, Becky and Dana Brooke on the injury:
Heal fast @EmmaWWE because we're only getting started
– The season finale of the Edge and Christian Show That Totally Reeks of Awesomeness airs this Monday night on the WWE Network after RAW. Here’s the synopsis:
“It all comes down to this! In the season finale, Edge and Christian embark on a quest to secure the most ultimate treasure of them all!”
– R-Truth is currently working on a clothing line with Cooper 9 urban clothing.
– A new “Behind The Curtain” documentary series is being planned for the WWE Network. Subject matters discussed for the first few episodes include Ric Flair’s plane crash, Bruiser Brody’s murder and the life of WWE Hall of Famer Gorgeous George.
– After filming a pilot episode at Full Sail a few months ago, the WWE Kids show is moving forward. No premiere date has been set.
– In related WWE Network news, the service recently added over 100 classic episodes of SmackDown to the vault. There are now more than 155 hours of SmackDown from 2000 – 2002.
– Ryback has had no communication with WWE since being sent home from RAW on May 2nd after failed contract talks with Vince McMahon.
– Vice Sports has an article about Ryback’s contractual dispute and ‘how things really work in WWE.’
– As part of this week’s Q1 financial report, WWE announced that the WWE Network will be getting around 6,000 hours of additional content by the end of this year. This new content will include over 300 hours of original programming and over 1,500 hours of archival programming.
– WWE.com is covering the story of Kevin Owens and Tyler Breeze raising money to help with relief efforts for the recent wildfires in Alberta, Canada. The exposure from WWE will go along way in raising awareness to the campaign. After reaching the initial goal of $30,000, the extended the campaign and are now looking to raise $100,000. As of this writing, they’re raised over $45,000. To donate to the cause, visit GoFundMe.com.
– Damien Sandow will be appearing at the June 11 GFW – WrestlePro event in Keyport, New Jersey with Hornswoggle and Zeb Colter, who were also released from WWE last week.
– Next Monday will see the season finale of The Edge & Christian Show air on the WWE Network.
This summer, WWE will present the Global Cruiserweight Series tournament on the WWE Network, a 10-episode series featuring 32 of the world’s top lightweight competitors. According to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, there are more tournaments in the works.
The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic will be returning later this year. Last year’s inaugural tournament was a phenomenal showcase of talent, with Finn Balor and Samoa Joe being crowned the winners. Back in March, Cody Rhodes confirmed that it will be an annual event.
WWE is also considering a women’s tournament to air on the WWE Network. Like the Global Cruiserweight Series, the women’s tournament would feature a mix of current talents as well as unsigned standout female competitors from around the world.
Steve Austin spoke on his latest podcast about Mick Foley hosting the upcoming Shane McMahon “tell all” podcast on the WWE Network instead of him. Austin revealed that he would have been glad to participate, but he’s still got his “wing in a sling” and is apprehensive about traveling while recovering from recent shoulder surgery.
Foley stated yesterday that Austin had a prior commitment, but that’s not the case. Austin said he was ready to travel to Baltimore for the interview but he’d rather not risk all the work that’s been done on his shoulder.
Austin is expecting to be in a sling for 4 more weeks and will begin range of motion work in 3 weeks.
The Shane McMahon Tell All Podcast hosted by Mick Foley airs Monday, May 23rd immediately following RAW.
– WWE referee Scott Armstrong is celebrating his 57th birthday today. He was born May 4, 1959.
– A new episode of “Table For 3” premieres tonight on the WWE Network featuring Hall of Famers Pat Patterson, Ricky Steamboat and Hillbilly Jim.
– On Tuesday, WWE announced that a Shane McMahon “tell all podcast” will air later this month (5/23) on the WWE Network. Mick Foley will host the special, a decision many fans questioned on social media.
Foley responded to the buzz, noting that the WWE Network’s resident podcast host, Steve Austin, was unavailable for the gig due to a previous commitment.
– “Mean” Gene Okerlund noted that his longtime broadcast colleague Bobby Heenan is currently hospitalized after taking a fall earlier today. Keep “The Brain” in your thoughts.
Hey Gang. Just got word that, Bobby Heenan had a spill this morning and will be in the hospital for a few days. Wishing The Brain the best
Update: Heenan’s wife Cynthia has provided an update, noting that he’ll remain hospitalized for the next 3 days while doctors monitor his low blood pressure. Use the hashtag #GetWellBobby on Twitter to show your support.
WWE sent out a programming alert on Tuesday announcing the next “podcast” special. The “Shane McMahon Tell All Podcast” hosted by Mick Foley premieres on the WWE Network on Monday, May 23rd immediately following RAW.
Starting in August, Foley and his daughter Noelle will star in their own WWE Network series, Holy Foley. For more information on that show, click here.
In another huge boost for the British wrestling scene the WWE have released footage from Rev Pro’s Live at the Cockpit 8 event showing Noam Dar secure his place in the Global Cruiserweight Series tournament.
Dar defeated longtime British standout Josh Bodom to earn himself a place in the highly anticipated WWE Network specials.
Dar dedicated his performance to longtime friend and British wrestling great Kris Travis who passed from cancer the day that Noam was announced as a competitor in the tournament.
Noam Dar qualified for WWE’s Global Cruiserweight Series on Sunday’s Revolution Pro Wrestling event. He defeated Josh Bodom at The Cockpit in London to make the cut. The 22-year-old grappler from Scotland is considered one of the top rising stars on the UK wrestling scene.
Two more qualifying matches will be held at EVOLVE Wrestling’s event this coming Saturday (5/7) from Queens, NY.
WWE’s Global Cruiserweight Series premieres on the WWE Network on Wednesday, July 13th.
The images as of a WWE Network survey, which included two new items of note:
This question: “If current episodes of Raw and SmackDown were to be added to WWE Network the day after airing on TV, how much more likely would you be to subscribe to WWE Network?“
The question “Which of the following are reasons why you would return to WWE Network? (Select as many that apply.)” with this as a new choice: “If there was a premium WWE Network subscription for $12.99 that includes current episodes of Raw and SmackDown the day after they air on TV.“
Access to current episodes of Monday Night Raw and SmackDown has often been cited by cord cutters as something that would entice them to subscribe to WWE Network and ditch cable/satellite television subscriptions. WWE’s TV contracts are a hurdle there, and not just domestically. As it is right now, Raw and SmackDown are added to WWE Network 30 days after they air, which is in compliance with all of their TV contracts.
Domestically, the only way to see more than WWE’s YouTube clips online via an officially licensed partner is Hulu Plus. On one hand, it does offer next day Raw and SmackDown. On the other hand, not only is it a separate paid subscription service, but Raw isn’t even complete. USA Network is very protective of the full version of Raw, so they go with one of the edited versions that WWE sends to international television partners. That edit runs about 90 minutes or sowithout commercials, so it would be a “two hour” Raw with commercials. Of course, some fans say it’s a far superior version of Raw, so your mileage may vary.
Last year, WWE ran into a different roadblock with a TV partner when they launched WWE Network in the United Kingdom. At the time, and going back to the early days of the network, Main Event aired live or almost live on Tuesdays. WWE’s deal with Sky Sports, their television partner in the region, conflicted with Main Event airing first on WWE Network, so a change had to be made. From then on, without any announcement or other kind of fanfare, Main Event was taken off the network’s linear feed and wasn’t added to the on demand library until three weeks after it aired everywhere on traditional television.
$3 per subscription doesn’t sound like close to enough to give WWE a war chest big enough to satisfy all TV partners, but they clearly have something in mind.
The WWE Network is cracking down on account sharing with the latest update of its Terms and Conditions. Several readers are already getting error messages about “stream limit exceeded” and “too many usage attempts.”
If a user gets this message, WWE’ support documentation encourages people to log out of the Network on other devices they might be logged in to.
The updated Terms and Conditions reads:
Access to Services: Access to WWE Network is subject to approval of your Payment Method information and verification of other information you submit to us or that is otherwise provided to us. Accordingly, if your payment (flat fee or monthly) cannot be processed for any reason, including because your Payment Method is no longer valid, we may terminate your access to the WWE Network immediately. Although your WWE Network subscription is accessible on a number of devices, your use is limited to one (1) WWE Network stream on one (1) device at any given time. IF YOU CIRCUMVENT OR ATTEMPT TO CIRCUMVENT ANY OF THE USE RESTRICTIONS IN THESE TERMS, YOUR SUBSCRIPTION WILL BE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE TERMINATION AND YOU MAY BE SUBJECT TO LEGAL ACTION. SHARING OF LOGIN INFORMATION, INCLUDING PASSWORDS, IS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN.
– Tucker Knight, who was defeated by Baron Corbin on this week’s episode of WWE NXT, came out to former WWE Diva Tori’s theme song for the contest.
– After WWE announced this week that more than 155 hours of Raw from 2002 and 2003 are now available on the WWE Network, episodes of SmackDown from 2000 and 2001 are being added to the service.
– Here is video of Eva Marie being interviewed on the 2016 WWE Hall of Fame red carpet.
– Enzo Amore and Big Cass have already made an impact on WWE’s main roster, but Carmella, the third member of the crew, has been conspicuously absent. When asked by a fan on Twitter why she had yet to appear with Enzo & Cass, she replied:
Enzo and Cass defeated The Ascension on SmackDown to advance in the tag team #1 contenders tournament. Also on the show, The Vaudvillains defeated Golden Truth. Confirmed second round matches include Enzo and Cass vs. The Dudley Boyz and The Vaudevillains vs. The Usos. It looks like the tournament winners will challenge New Day for the tag titles at WWE Payback on May 1st.
– The WWE Network has added more than 100 classic episodes of WWE RAW, including the Ruthless Aggression Era (2002-2003). Memorable angles from this era include Mr. McMahon delivering a lethal dose of poison to WWE in the form of the nWo, Goldberg’s WWE debut and subsequent rivalry with The Rock and more.
– Chris Jericho is letting it be known that certain podcasters don’t know what they’re talking about when criticizing the fact that he went over AJ Styles at WrestleMania:
WWE Fastlane was the least-purchased PPV in company history, according to the Wrestling Observer.
Fastlane did 18,000 PPV buys in North America and 25,000 ppv buys outside of North America with a total of 43,000 PPV Buys. In comparison, last years Fastlane did a total of 56,00 PPV Buys.
Fastlane 2016 was headlined with Roman Reigns defeating both Dean Ambrose and Brock Lesnar for the right to face Triple H at Wrestlemania 32.
Its worth noting that WWE is primarily focused on getting people signed up for the WWE Network, which would reflect the poor buy-rate numbers, but WWE still makes PPV available to fans. In a press release on Monday, WWE revealed the WWE Network now boasts 1.82 million subscribers, which is a 39 percent increase from a year ago.
While WWE has had a number of victories in court last month, just as the dust cleared from WrestleMania weekend, they were named in another lawsuit. Yesterday, Rene Goguen, best known as Rene Dupree, filed a lawsuit against the company in federal court in WWE’s home state of Connecticut. The main thrust of the complaint is that Dupree has not been paid royalties for his matches being aired on WWE Network Just over a week ago, Dupree had been asked on the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast about the rumors of such a lawsuit being shopped to wrestlers, and here’s what he had to say:
“I wish they would pay me for the WWE Network because I think everyone who is on it should get some type of royalty off of that. Because I guess you are still part of the company in some way if they are showing your stuff, but at the same time they say that nobody watches the “old stuff”. Well take off all the old stuff off and watch your f–king subscriber count drop within six months. You know there is a lawsuit coming from that as well? They are being sued by everybody. They are being sued with the concussion lawsuit, the guys with the royalties and also the investors. Remember when they lost like 400 million dollars in one day? They pissed off a bunch of people and a bunch of investors are suing them too.”
When asked if he was a potential plaintiff, Dupree replied that “I cannot confirm or deny, I plead the fifth” while laughing. That was the last he said publicly about the potential lawsuit before it was filed yesterday.
I reached out to Jerry McDevitt, WWE’s outside counsel, for comment on the lawsuit, and here’s what he provided us in response:
“Aside from the complete lack of merit, the fact there are numerous decisions precluding the non-contractual claims, and the fact that the contract does not give him any rights that relate to the WWE Network, Goguen signed an agreement in 2011 which we believe precludes these claims. I do not think he told his lawyers about the above agreement, and they were notified of it last night with the obvious demand that the lawsuit be dismissed. They thanked me for telling them, and said they would look into it, which to me confirms he did not tell them.”
McDevitt later added that the 2011 agreement was not a WWE “Legends’ Contract.”
The 19 page complaint, which is embedded at the bottom of this article (and can also be viewed on Archive.org) focuses primarily on the language regarding home video royalties in Dupree’s 2003 Talent Booking Contract with WWE. Subsequent to Dupree signing with WWE (believed to be about 2004 when WWE launched the WWE 24-7/WWE Classics on Demand subscription video on demand service; an online version was added later), this language was added to the standard contract (emphasis mine):
7.5 No Royalties Paid to WRESTLER. Except as specifically set forth in Section 7.1 through 7.3 above, WRESTLER shall not be eligible for any payment or royalties with respect to any other goods, services or otherwise including without limitation to the following: television license fees; television subscription fees; internet subscription fees; subscription video on demand fees; magazine subscription fees and/or advertising; and/or distribution fees of any kind paid to PROMOTER by any entity in connection with the exploitation of the Intellectual Property.
Dupree’s attorneys (Clinton A. Krislov and Matthew T. Peterson of Krislov & Associates in Chicago and Brenden Leydon of Tooher Wocl & Leydon in WWE’s home town of Stamford, CT) are arguing that under the language of the contract Dupree signed in 2003, he’s entitled to royalties from WWE Network. There are various sections of the contract entitling him (or anyone else who signed this version of the contract) to various different royalty rates on different forms of WWE Video Products. Those are defined in the contract as (emphasis taken from the complaint) “video cassettes, videodiscs, CD ROM, or other technology, including technology not yet created,” In addition to WWE Network, the complaint argues that this language should also include licensing fees that WWE gets from Netflix.
The basic argument of the complaint is that…
Defendant breached its Booking Contract with Plaintiff by selling WWE Video Products (streaming videos on the WWE Network) of PPVs and Non-PPVs without paying any royalties to Plaintiff. Plaintiff assigned his intellectual property rights in perpetuity to WWE in exchange for royalty payments from the sales of WWE Video Products of PPVs and Non-PPVs.
And…
Defendant breached its Booking Contract with Plaintiff by licensing WWE Video Products (streaming video) of PPVs and Non PPVs without paying any royalties to Plaintiff.
Dupree’s lawyers are also trying to have the case certified as a class action lawsuit, which means that others similarly situated could join in. Here’s how they’re trying to define the class:
All individuals who have assigned their original and new intellectual property rights to WWE or a promotion that WWE has acquired the assets and/or the video library of, in exchange for perpetual royalty payments from WWE’s (or acquired promotion) or licensees’ sales of past pay-per-view events or non pay-per-view productions.
They then split the class into two sub-classes for WWE performers and non-WWE performers who were signed to promotions that WWE bought the video libraries of. I’m just a layman, but the way this is laid out in the complaint seems like it’s opening them up to plenty of scrutiny for WWE, as they make sure to note the contract language entitling wrestlers to home video royalties going back to 1980 (which may not be entirely accurate in the first place) while ignoring the aforementioned language about not being entitled to royalties from “television subscription fees; internet subscription fees; [and] subscription video on demand fees” that has been there for the past decade or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBKuom1D9W8
There have been other lawsuits like this in the past, but they didn’t involve plaintiffs with a WWE Talent Booking Contract. Doug Somers’ lawsuit over using his AWA matches failed, as did Steve Ray’s lawsuit over ESPN airing matches from herb Abrams’ UWF, while Doug and Tommy Gilbert (with Tommy representing his son Eddie’s estate) dropped their lawsuit against both WWE and ESPN over various footage of Eddie and Doug in the GWF, ECW, and WCW.
Today, WWE held a conference call and sent out a press release revealing the WWE Network subscription numbers as of today to reflect the interest in WrestleMania 32. Here’s the breakdown of today’s numbers and how they relate to the post-WrestleMania numbers last year:
1,824,000 total subscribers worldwide (up 39% from 1,315,000 last year, though there were no free subscriptions in that period)
1,454,000 paid subscribers worldwide (up 11% from 1,315,000 last year, with the same caveats applying to this and every other comparison)
370,000 free subscribers worldwide
1,390,000 total domestic subscribers (up 24% from 1,123,000 last year)
1,109,000 domestic paid subscribers (down 1% from 1,123,000 last year)
281,000 domestic free subscribers
434,000 total international subscribers (up 126% from 192,000 last year)
345,000 international paid subscribers (up 80% from 192,000 last year)
89,000 international free subscribers
While the decline in domestic paid subscribers is not great on the surface, you have to remember that they decided to allow free trials during WrestleMania with a specific goal in mind. The hope is that it would bring in a ton of trials, the new subscribers wouldn’t cancel (doesn’t matter if they loved the service or just forgot), and then keep their subscription going. If “churn” (subscriber loss) is minimal, then this is a huge success. If the numbers just go back to where they were, then that’s a big problem.
Meanwhile, the press release has quotes from Vince McMahon…
History was made last night with both a record-setting crowd at AT&T Stadium and more households than ever before watching WrestleMania on WWE Network. WWE Network continues to drive transformative growth for our company.
…and WWE Chief Strategy & Financial Officer George Barrios:
Results today further demonstrate the power of our brand, illustrate our potential to drive long-term growth and provide evidence that we are effectively executing our multi-platform content strategy.
There were also notes about how:
“Video views reached 65 million across social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, and YouTube), representing an 87% increase over last year.”
“WrestleMania garnered a record 10.9 million social media fan engagements4, up 19% from the prior year.” They define those engagements as “the cumulative fan response to WWE content measured by the number of ‘likes’, ‘follows’, ‘shares’, ‘mentions’, and ‘retweets’ across social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Tumblr.”
On the conference call, which used this presentation (PDF) as a reference point, there wasn’t much addition information…or at least substantive information. Barrios did say that WWE Network is now available everywhere on the planet other than China, with their China strategy coming in “[the] next several months, hopefully.”
While WWE stock was rising leading up to the announcement ((Previous close was $17.71/share, open was $17.71, and high was $18.86), it dropped sharply thereafter. The stock bottomed out at $15.90 before rebounding slightly to $16.56, which is the price per share as of this writing.
One day after WrestleMania and the WWE has reached new heights in more than one category.
In the latest press release on Yahoo.com, the WWE released the latest numbers on the WWE Network. Following WrestleMania, the Network has reached the 1.82 million-subscriber mark.
It is a 39-percent increase from March 30, 2015.
“History was made last night with both a record-setting crowd at AT&T Stadium and more households than ever before watching WrestleMania on WWE Network,” said WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon. “WWE Network continues to drive transformative growth for our company.”
During Thursday’s wrestling media conference call, WWE COO Triple H announced the first 7 competitors for this summer’s Global Cruiserweight Series:
Zack Sabre Jr.
Johnny Gargano
Rich Swann
Tommaso Ciampa
Noam Dar
Hoho Lund
Akira Tozawa
The 32-man tournament will air over 10 weeks this summer on the WWE Network. It’s already been announced that EVOLVE, PROGRESS Wrestling and Revolution Pro will host qualifying matches starting next month.