Vince McMahon salary revealed!!

WWE billionaire chairman Vince McMahon

Money, It is what the Mr.McMahon character is all about. Over the past few years WWE fans have begged for Vince McMahon to step down as CEO due to disgruntled fans being unhappy with the product.

From WWE's latest report to the SEC,due to it being revealed online, it doesn't look like Vince McMahon's power in WWE is going away anytime soon. McMahon owns 41% of WWE shares and 81% of voting power, due to his shares being class B shares rather than class A, which gives him 10 times more voting power.

It also revealed his 2018 salary, in which he earned 5 million dollars for the year 2018, so he is earning plenty of money per year and still has the most power out of anyone in WWE, unfortunately for WWE fans, he will not be stepping away anytime soon.

The Man's Twitter game is SAVAGE!

WWE Superstar Becky Lynch's savage twitter game

The MAN Becky Lynch, who is scheduled for a Wrestlemania main event against Charlotte Flair and Ronda Rousey has a very impressive twitter game.
When Becky Lynch got arrested on last week's episode of RAW, she put up this tweet the day after. A photo of 'The Shawshank Redemption' with herself photoshopped in the right hand corner, talking about how she got locked up in prison for a night and that 'bitches are going to pay'.
This is part of the reason why Becky Lynch became such a huge superstar in 2019, she connects with the fans and resonates with the audience. She is being compared to a female version of Stone Cold Steve Austin which, is a massive compliment, and can be understood when WWE is has been pitting her against authority figures the past few weeks, much like Stone Cold Steve Austin.
She continues to tweet new, funny material on Twitter each week that(her) fans can connect with, which helps her become a bigger star.
WWE has even capitalised on this, they have released a new Becky Lynch t-shirt with her 'mugshots' from prison on it, becoming a hot seller instantly, due to her huge popularity.
She keeps getting huge responses from fans on social media with that particular tweet about prison getting 24K likes, which is alot more than most other WWE superstars get.
Whatever happens, she is going to be one of three female competitors, which will be the first in history, to main event WWE's biggest show of the year Wrestlemania, if she keeps putting these funny, resonating tweets up each week, she will have no shortage of people chanting for her name at Wrestlemania.

Dana Warrior JOINS Creative Team at WWE

Ultimate Warrior's Widow Dana Warrior, big philanthropist

Dana Warrior, The Ultimate Warrior's widow, is reported to have joined the WWE Creative Writing Team.

Dana has been a critical part of WWE's philnathropic efforts since 2014, since her husband( the late Ultimate Warrior) got inducted into the Hall of Fame.The news has been corroborated by both Pro Wrestling Sheet and Whatculture, two online wrestling news sources. This is a positive step as she is a female, and WWE seem to have no female members in the creative team other than Stephanie McMahon.

 What does this mean? well to give my opinion, I think this will be a major positive step going forward due to WWE's renewed effort these past few years to present female performers the same as male performer and the equivelant to them, having only recently crowned womens tag team champions.

This will be great going forward for women especially because she can understand women, unlike the male WWE Creative Writers and she might be able to continue pushing the boundaries of WWE's 'Women's Evolution' to a product where we see women main eventing shows more often.

 

Roman Reigns cancer defeat gets HUGE Social Media response!

WWE Wrestler Roman Reigns, who vacacted the WWE Universal title in October due to cancer

WWE has been struggling as of late, with sagging tv ratings and a lack of stars due to injury, WWE needed some good news, and we got that news with last night's edition of Monday night Raw.

Back in October 2018 Roman Reigns announced his Leukemia had returned and he was taking a leave of absence to go and fight it. That was all we heard from Roman Reigns, until last night.

Roman Reigns announced that, for the second time, he has beat Leukemia and he is returning to the ring soon. WWE's replay of this clip on twitter has got 12 thousand retweets and 39.7 thousand likes. A lot of people were delighted with this news and made it known on twitter. John Cena was one of the most high profile people tweeting about this, retweeing the tweet and telling Roman his time is 'Most certainly NOW!'. Sami Zayn simply tweeted.' Man, it's really great to see Roman Reigns again'.A lot more WWE superstars tweeted their delight that WWE's current top star is not only returning to the ring, but has beaten Leukemia for a second time.

A lot of mainstream online news outlets picked up the news story as well with sites like Unilad,BBC,Irish Sun,CNN, USA Today and IGN all announcing the story that Roman Reigns is returning to wrestling.

Whether this means Roman will lead to an increase in the ratings is uncertain, but he has helped capture alot of online mainstream coverage due to his real life fight and win against Leaukemia.

WWE Roman Reigns return gets HUGE social media response!!!

Vince McMahon proud of his top star coming back to the company to have a big announcement

WWE has always been known for a strong social media presence and using online media to further WWE's storylines and to get viewers to watch their television products. Vince McMahon(owner of WWE) announced via Twitter that Roman Reigns( The guy who they were positioning the company around till his Leukemia came back last year) will be addressing the status of his Leukemia on Monday Night Raw. This, seemingly, is the latest, in a number of tactics WWE is using to try get their TV ratings up, being the lowest they have been in 24 years. With their viewers at an all time low of just over 2 Million TV viewers for Monday Night Raw compared to back in 2000 when they were regularly getting over 6 million viewers week in, week out. WWE's ratings have been declining steadily the past few years, with a 3 hour product, stale storylines and no long term storylines, it is no wonder the viewership is dwindling, however when WWE Smackdown Live( their Tuesday night show) moves to FOX in September this year, they will be expecting a minimum of 3 million viewers per week, while at this current time, they struggle to stay at 2 million. 

Will this lead to Raw getting more viewers and fixing their ratings problem? who knows, but based on the social media response(Over 10 thousand retweets and 47 thousand favourites) it sure looks like people are paying attention.

WWE Brings back Bruce Prichard?!!?

Bruce Prichard, otherwise known as  Brother Love, is back in the WWE fold

One of the major woes these past few months has been WWE's creative decisions. After suffering their lowest television rating since 1996 back in December, WWE's McMahon family came back to television to promise a 'new era' to WWE fans and hit the reset button on alot of WWE's storylines including the fact they got rid of automatic rematches.

Despite this, WWE's ratings have continued to drop to a point where, last week, WWE hit the reset button again, and called up 4 of their top stars from their developmental territory NXT, debuting Ricochet, Johnny Gargano, Tommassa Ciampa and Aleister Black to freshen up the product.

To keep this freshening creative process going, WWE(according to online media reports) has re-hired Bruce Prichard to work on the creative team, whether this will lead to better received product is anyone's guess, it looks like WWE is in desperation mode to try make their product better, whether Prichard is out of touch or still has some creative genius in him remains to be seen, we will have to tune in to the product over the coming weeks to see if anything gets better.

AEW Sells out Double or Nothing in 4 minutes

AEW, All Elite Wrestling, a WWE rival sold out

Last year Cody Rhodes, with the help of fellow wrestlers the Young Bucks( Nick and Matt Jackson) sold out a 10 thousand seater arena in September for their smash hit event 'All In'. Since then, they have announced the creation of a new wrestling company funded by the billionaire Khan family called All Elite Wrestling(AEW).

When AEW Double or Nothing tickets went on general sale online on 13th February 2019, people did not expect them to sell out, or at least not to sell out as quickly as they did. They sold out their 12 thousand seat MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas in the online sale, in 4 minutes.

This is monumental news for AEW as it shows that there is a high demand for their wrestling product, even if AEW has not put on one show yet. The hype and momentum for AEW is sky high at the minute and if Double or Nothing proves to be a success, both critically and commercially, we can expect they will get a bigger venue for their next event after Double or Nothing, due to the quick sellouts and high demand.

AEW'S Double or Nothing Rally Stream a smash hit!

AEW, All Elite Wrestling Rally with Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks got plenty of viewers

AEW Double or Nothing Rally Stream a smash hit!

AEW Held a press conference on January 8th 2019 to announce upcoming matches for their Double or Nothing wrestling event in the MGM Grand arena in May. 

The stream peaked at 58 thousand viewers watching live on Youtube and 6 thousand viewers watching on Facebook.

They announced new signings, the biggest, being Japan megastar Kenny Omega. Other new signings included Aja Kong, Kylie Ray, The Lucha Brothers( Pentagon and Rey Fenix), Sammy Guevera,Nylie Rose and the tag team Best Friends( Trent Barretta and Chuckie T).

They also announced several big matches for the event, such as a rematch between Chris Jericho and Kenny Omega, The Lucha Brothers versus the Young Bucks(Nick+Matt Jackson) and Socal Uncensored(SCU) versus CIMA with 2 surprise tag team partners. More matches are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Regardless, the event looks nearly to be a sellout as it is, with the AEW website crashing during the stream due to the pre sale request of tickets happening, where you would be guaranteed a ticket if you booked online.

AEW will need to keep the momentum going in the next few weeks to keep hype going for their Double or Nothing event.

MAJOR WWE STARS TO AEW!!!!!??????

OUT OF NOWHERE! Randy Orton, a top WWE star, is thinking about leaving for AEW

 

EVERYBODY IS LEAVING FOR AEW!???

AEW is the biggest buzz in the wrestling world at the moment with rumours about it's tv deals and talent leaking the past few weeks. One persistent piece of news that keeps popping up about AEW is reports that stars from WWE are considering leaving for the new promotion due to the buzz and their dissatisfaction with their character and development in WWE.

Seemingly everybody and their grandmother seems to be signing with AEW. News has come out this week that 2 major stars have consider AEW for their next wrestling venture. WWE stars Brock Lesnar and Randy Orton are the rumoured superstars looking to departure according to various online news websites. Brock Lesnar is reportedly only considering AEW to drive WWE to increase his payment on his already lucrative WWE contract. Randy Orton seems to be different though, he signed a 10 year deal back in 2010 and that deal is due to be up next year. He isn't featured that heavily in main event programming when compared to years past, so a deal with AEW might be his ticket to a resurgence in his career.

Whether any of these rumours of WWE superstars come to fruition remains to be seen, one thing is clear, there is now an alernative for unhappy WWE wrestlers if they do not want to stay in WWE and WWE will need to start utilising it's roster better if it doesn't want it's talent to go to rival promotion AEW.

WWE's revived Halftime Heat draws low ratings

WWE NXT, run by Triple H, rebooted Halftime Heat this year

The Super Bowl is the biggest sporting event in the world, with over 100 Million people watching it every year. Due to the popularity of the Super Bowl every year with several celebrities willing to perform during halftime of the game, and major companies airing advertisements during it, which are often the highlight of the Super Bowl.

WWE capitalized on this period 20 years ago in January 1999 when they aired a special 'Halftime Heat' broadcast on the USA Network during the Super Bowl's usually boring and dull halftime. When WWE originally did this concept back in 1999 they got 11 million viewers, which was amazing for a wrestling telvision show.

WWE revived the concept this year and brought it back, not for their main roster brand, but for their 'developmental' brand NXT. Airing a 6 Man Tag Team match, it did not do amazing numbers with it peaking at 71 thousand viewers across Youtube, Facebook and Twitter. They additionally had the program broadcast on the WWE Network and WWE.com, but those viewership figures were not released.

It has to be noted, that since the time of writing their Youtube clip for 'Halftime Heat' and the 'NXT Marathon' does have 1.2 Million viewers, but those were viewers after Halftime Heat aired.It was also a different time back in 1999 as the WWE was in a Monday Night ratings war with now defunct rival WCW and their viewership and popularity was at an all time high due to the attitude era and stars like Steve Austin, The Rock, DX among others. This wasn't the main WWE brand either, this was only their 'developmental' brand, so it was still good exposure, for the future superstars of WWE, and as a concept it would benefit from being broadcast every year.

They should broadcast it on traditional networks next time such as the USA Network/FOX, if they want to get more viewers from it and make advertising revenue from it too, as well as use main roster talent, as the main roster would have a lot more recognizable stars than their NXT roster would.

As for the broadcast itself, it was an amazing 30 minutes of athletic action, hopefully WWE continue to do Halftime Heat every year to capitalise on the Super Bowl's boring halftime.

SHOCKER:Dean Ambrose Leaving WWE

Dean Ambrose,WWE, wrestling, media,Shield

WWE is the Mecca for professional wrestlers, a 7 figure salary, travelling all around the world, and being on television every week, therefore it came as a surprise that one of WWE's biggest stars Dean Ambrose is leaving WWE. The news broke on online wrestling dirt sheet site Pro Wrestling Torch earlier this week, but in a unprecedented, surprising twist WWE, via their online website, confirmed that the rumours are true and Dean Ambrose is not renewing his WWE contract. Dean Ambrose's contract expires after Wrestlemania 35 and WWE has already offered him a very lucrative deal back in December but he turned it down.

It is easy to see why he is leaving, the wrestling industry is in a very interesting position in 2019, with the arrival of AEW and Ring of Honor and New Japan being good alternatives to WWE, performers do not have to stay in WWE if they are unhappy. Dean Ambrose has consistently been one of the best in ring performers in recent years, but his character and promo work has left a bad taste in fan's mouths with it being very hokey and embarrassing.

Where he will go to after WWE, we can only speculate, but it is not often you see a top performer leave WWE, and not only that, but WWE confirm via their website that he is leaving. Whether this leads to a creative rebirth of his character elsewhere or he leaves the business enitirely is anyone's guess.

WWE Uploads 35 years on post with controversial WWE Legend HULK HOGAN

Hulk Hogan, nWo,WWE,wrestling,star,sports,Gawker

 Hulk Hogan

A legend of the business no doubt, but a name that has been smeared in controversy due to his leaked sex tape and the racial slurs he used in it back in 2015 getting him fired from WWE.

Perhaps in a reflection of just how diminished his star power is due to his controversial sex tape and racial slurs, a WWE video clip of Hulk Hogan reflecting on his first title win 35 years ago on January 23rd 1984 has only garnered 63K views on Youtube.This reflects just how far his name value has fallen, this clip only got 63K views, where as a Rey Mysterio vs Andrade got 740K views on WWE's channel on Youtube.

This shows that WWE is willing to use Hulk Hogan in their company, having recently only returned to honour 'Mean' Gene Okerland on WWE Raw a few weeks ago, despite the controversial racial slurs he used back in 2015. This outlines that with time, despite your controversies, anyone can come to WWE.

#metoo,womens wrestling, television, GLOW, empowerment

Women of Wrestling, founded by David McClane, who previously founded GLOW(Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling) in the 1980's, which has a Netflix series based on it called GLOW, now has a new venture with Women of Wrestling. Women of Wrestling has been around for years with their tv program now going into its 5th season. They premiered on AXS TV this year which is a huge step for the promotion as they had been previously airing their programs exclusively online.

WOW is unique because like GLOW, it is an all female wrestling promotion which means that women get alot more time, compared to other wrestling promotions where it is men and women and women usually have one title, where as the men have many.
How will this help them become more exposed and mainstream in 2018? who knows, but with wrestling being as hot as it has ever been and there been a demand for live sports with the decline of regular tv program ratings, WOW is in a great position for upward growth due to its unique product and television deal.

Impact Wrestling on Twitch: Numbers

TNA,Impact,Spike,Destination America, Jeff Jarrett,Dixie Carter,Anthem

Impact Wrestling, owned by Anthem Sports, has now the most number of followers for a wrestling program on Twitch, currently standing at 69,764 followers and also has the distinction of the most watched wrestling program on Twitch. Although it makes for grim reading, watching the number of viewers they get on Twitch when you compare it to their former broadcast partner, POP, which they were getting consistently above 100K+ viewers each week and now they can only get 7,866 viewers for their Impact Wrestling program.

What does this mean for Impact Wrestling going forward? we can expect the ratings on Twitch the only indicators of their viewership due to the Pursuit chanel not being in the top 150 broadcasts in America due to low viewership and Impact unwilling to disclose their tv ratings. Twitch is still good from an exposure point of view as it allows people all around the world to watch Impact Wrestling for free as long as you have a streaming device and internet connection.

Women= Ratings?

tna,bra and panties,nude,sex,risque,RAW, WWE,

Women= Ratings??? 

 WWE does not have the best track record with regards to women's wrestling and treating it with respect. For years talented female competitors were labelled 'divas' and participated in various matches based on Sex Appeal rather than in ring talent such as the infamous 'Bra and Panties' match.

On the 14th and 15th January episodes of Monday night Raw and Tuesday Night Smackdown Live fans got a flashback to that era of womens wrestling in two similiar segments that aired. The one that aired on Monday night Raw had a stagehand interrupt Alexa Bliss while she was getting changed and she only had a top in her hand covering her upper body, the second segment had Mandy Rose wearing lingerie in a hotel room segment with WWE superstars Jimmy Uso. This was viewed as a surprise by most fans giving WWE's TV PG ratings and their emphasis on women's wrestling in recent years, holding their first all ever Women's pay per view back in October called 'Evolution'.

Regardless of the content, the content got alot of views, much more views than WWE content normally gets. Currently, the Mandy Rose segment has 3.4 Million views on Youtube and the Alexa Bliss segment has 6.2 Million views. Comparing this to WWE's other more conservative content, this got a lot more views than everything else, for comparison, the AJ Styles Daniel Bryan backstage brawl has 718 thousand views, much less than the women's risque segments.

Whether this means we will get a return where women will be rated more on their sex appeal in WWE rather than their in ring talent remains to be seen, but one thing is for sure, it gets viewers, who knew?.

WWE Premiers Irish Wrestlers story on WWE Network

Ring of Honor, Ireland, Nigel Mcguinness,WWE, retired, WWE 24,

In 2014, WWE announced they were starting their own over the top(OTT) online streaming service like Netflix or Amazon Prime, called the WWE Network. A lot of fans were skeptical of this, because their is only so much wrestling content one can endure, however WWE turned this around and started airing WWE Network original series and documentaries much like Netflix and Amazon Prime does.
The latest in their WWE Network Original Documentaries was 'Chasing The Magic: The Nigel McGuinness Story' about a retired wrestler called Nigel McGuinness, who works in their NXT UK brand as a colour commentator, rise to become of the best non-WWE wrestlers in the world and his fall from grace.
This was great for wrestling fans because he never got to wrestle in WWE because by the time he debuted in WWE in 2018, he was a retired wrestler due to injury.
WWE have done similiar documentaries before like with their WWE 24 series where they documented the careers of: Ultimate Warrior, Booker T and Kurt Angle as well as the backstage event for Wrestlemania 31,32 and 33.
As always, given that this is a subscriber based service, this will only serve to boost their subscriber number as it is Wrestlemania season and last year they got a record breaking 2.1 Million subscribers in the first quarter of 2018.
If they keep producing original content like this, that number looks set to be broken this year.

IMPACT Wrestling Moving to Twitch

TNA,Spike TV, Impact,Anthem,Fight Network, Wrestling,WWE

IMPACT WRESTLING WEEKLY TV SHOW NOW AVAILABLE ON TWITCH!

The wrestling promotion IMPACT now has signed a deal with streaming service Twitch to broadcast their weekly television show Impact Wrestling. This is a good sign for the promotion as they have recently moved to The Pursuit Channel in America which is available in fewer homes than their previous broadcaster POP. This is viewed as a bad step for the promotion, at a time when WWE has signed a TV  deal with FOX worth 1 Billion Dollars, Impact had to sign a deal with a Online broadcaster that mainly broadcasts gaming streams, not wrestling shows and they could not even get on a TV broadcaster that isn't owned by Impact's parent company Anthem Sports, which owns The Pursuit Channel, which many speculate is the only reason Impact still have a TV deal.

The past few years has seen Impact Wrestlings ratings and viewers dwindle from their all time high in 2010 of 2 Million viewers on Spike TV to their lowest ever ratings the past 2 years, on their 20th December broadcast on POP they only got 116 thousand viewers. 

How is this media related? As i mentioned, Impact Wrestling is now going to broadcast on Twitch, an online streaming service, as well as that, Impact Wrestling regularly broadcasts the highlights of their weekly tv shows and sporadic pay per views to their Youtube channel which gets thousands of views and they even have their own streaming service called the 'Global Wrestling Network' which has an archive of old pay per views and TV broadcasts, which is online media.

New Media/wrestling Company founded by the Billionaire Khan family

Jacksonville Jaguars, Khan, AEW, All Elite Wrestling,Young Bucks,Cody Rhodes,Brandi Rhodes,WCW

BILLIONAIRE KHANS FUND NEW WRESTLING PROMOTION

The billionaire Khan family, who own the Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham FC have announced they are starting a new wrestling promotion called All Elite Wrestling. It was announced on the Youtube channel 'Being The Elite' on New Year's Day by wrestlers Cody Rhodes, Nick Jackson and Matt Jackson. Being The Elite is a regular  weekly Youtube series by these wrestlers highlighting life on the road as a wrestler. Tony Khan will serve as president of the promotion. Interest around wrestling grew in 2018 due to the 1 Billion dollar FOX television deal with WWE and Cody Rhodes, Nick+Matt Jackson setting up the biggest independent wrestling event since the closure of WCW in 2001 called 'All IN' drawing 10 thousand fans into an arena. Which has now spurred a renewed interest from broadcasters into wrestling.

They held a rally outside the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium on January 8th announcing several key details like the signing of massive stars Chris Jericho and PAC(known as Neville in WWE) as well as their first event 'Double or Nothing' which will be broadcast on major streaming sevice FITE TV and will be held in the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas in May.Since the rally they have setup their social media accounts, of which they have 102K followers on Instagram alone and have even being wrote about by Forbes, FOX Sports and CBS Sports.

They are currently negotiating with several TV networks for a television show, which allegedly includes interest from former broadcaster of major wrestling promotion WCW, TNT. Whatever happens, WWE was the number 2 most viewed Youtube channel of 2018 so there is an interest in wrestling being broadcast and wrestling in general, but how much interest? we will soon find out.

How is this media related? Wrestling companies are as much media companies as wrestling companies nowadays, as their main source of revenue is from television+pay per view deals(media), not from live events, as WWE's 1 Billion Dollar deal with Fox suggests, wrestling is made for media and there now seems to be a renewed interest in wrestling from broadcasters due to WWE's new TV deal, ALL IN being a massive success (despite being non-WWE) and the new AEW, funded by the billionaire Khan family. They may have only been in business one week but already AEW merchandise is the number 1 top selling on Pro Wrestling Tees(online seller of wrestling merchandise). There is already a huge number of networks broadcasting wrestling: FITE TV broadcasts small independent promotions, Fight Network broadcasts IMPACT Wrestling and Smash Wrestling and Sinclair Broadcasting Group broadcasts Ring of Honor, wresting is made for media.So the future looks bright for AEW if they can get a major network TV deal, as demonstrated by WWE, wrestling can draw and the future looks bright for AEW.