Daily Update: WWE layoffs, SmackDown, CMLL Anniversary Show

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This Week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter

The new issue of the Observer is out, and it’s a big one:

  • The WWE merges with UFC and transitions into TKO, the most in depth look at the changes to be expected and where changes aren’t to be expected
  • Amount of cuts expected to be made
  • What type of people are expected to be cut
  • Nick Khan’s letter to employees before the cuts
  • First major departure
  • How Saudi Arabia investing in PFL affected the stock
  • New board of directors
  • New hierarchy
  • Dana White talks merger and shoots down another exec’s goal for the new company
  • Talk on future television rights
  • Current market value and did it reach projections
  • Biggest financial concerns
  • Crossover promotion
  • Match of the week and performer of the week
  • AEW All in attendance with notes on other stadium shows including actual WrestleMania turnstile counts vs. announced and paid attendance
  • Bryan Danielson’s full-time career winds down, why, how long he’s thought about this and talks candidly about his decision
  • Long-term concerns
  • UFC 293 in Australia with one of the biggest upsets in history. Who’s house? Sean’s house.
  • Future of middleweight division
  • Business notes on the show
  • History of promotional wars, timing, how AEW vs. WWE is the same, how it differs
  • AEW and its decline in live attendance, the key reasons and what can be done, and how WCW turned it around under Zane Bresloff
  • How other companies turned it around and how the circumstances to do that aren’t there in this situation
  • A look at the next major WWE, AEW and NXT shows and early business notes
  • WWE Superstar spectacular in India coverage
  • The unique career of Brett Wayne Sawyer, top singles champion on the most-watched television show in the country at 23, and a career that fell off quickly
  • The early days of the Road Warriors
  • The booking of Ole Anderson
  • The most detailed look at the ratings, weekly and nightly standings, segment breakdowns, comparisons to one year ago in a very important and newsworthy week
  • CMLL 90th anniversary show this week
  • Legends special match coming
  • Stardom PPV notes including one of the week’s best matches
  • Performer of the week and match of the week
  • First time ever for a true rookie in match of the week
  • Major dream match this weekend with Will Ospreay
  • Updates on Jim Duggan
  • Notes on the death of former Carolinas announcer Rich Landrum
  • Notes on the Cassandro movie
  • Pro wrestling star leaves the business for one year, wins a gold medal in the Olympics–this long forgotten piece of wrestling history
  • Bandido returning
  • Impact Hall of Fame notes and notes on Mike Tenay
  • Jade Cargill update
  • Business updates on PPV from All Out, Backlash and All In
  • What percentage of WWE buyers purchased an AEW show in the last few weeks
  • Ticket sales for upcoming AEW & WWE shows
  • International TV ratings
  • Streaming numbers for WWE
  • Ortiz & Santana breakup explained
  • Paul Wight’s name in ESPN story on PED investigation
  • Georges St-Pierre into Canadian Sports Hall of Fame
  • UFC top star leaving the promotion
  • UFC Hall of Famer gets DWI
  • Bray Wyatt funeral
  • Vince McMahon’s return
  • Thoughts on Smackdown and what is the best day for the show if FX gets it
  • Drew McIntyre update
  • Roman Reigns return
  • Lots of comings and goings in WWE
  • WWE and NXT live event coverage

This Week’s Retro Observer Newsletter

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Friday Update

Garrett Gonzales and I talk the news of the week and going forward with Wrestling Observer Radio today. The show was just recorded and we go into depth on the stories in the Observer, including the Dwayne Johnson at WrestleMania story, the merger, the layoffs, AEW attendance at Wembley, the history of promotional wars and how things have and haven’t turned around, and so much more. From a business standpoint this is probably one of our best discussions as we talked the Charter Cable vs. Disney/ESPN situation, AEW on MAX and potential for 12 PPVs a year and break down the business reasons, Bryan Danielson, and more. Our weekend show with Bryan Alvarez will be on Sunday night.

Lots of office layoffs today in WWE but nothing related to talent or the production team. This is consistent with the Endeavor purchase of UFC in 2016. Our lead article in the new issue goes through the lessons from that purchase and how things would be expected to go with the merger. There were about 100 layoffs in the company which would be more than 12 percent of the workforce. A lot were upset the way it happened as they were not even allowed to say goodbyes. All employees were told not to come to work and to work remotely, and then those let go were informed. People were told that this is it for the merger layoffs and everyone else is safe, but UFC employees were told the same thing in 2016 and there were still more rounds of layoffs. 

Nobody in talent or production was let go. The people let go were those mostly where there was duplication of jobs within UFC, so it was the business side and not the talent side.

Regarding the laying off of Dana Warrior and people being surprised, this is the exact type of layoff the new owners would do. When Endeavor purchased UFC, they quickly laid out Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes, who were promised lifetime employment by the previous regime. There are no sacred cows to the new group, or legacy employees.

They gutted the analytics department, which is notable because a few years ago that was considered such an important department when learning about trends and what fans wanted. They also cut back on marketing, graphic design and live events, but that was expected since there was duplication with UFC having similar departments. One would expect UFC cuts as well in departments with duplication with WWE. They also cut people from the WWE Network division since UFC had people working at Fight Pass which is a similar business and the podcasting division.

The biggest names let go were Jamie Horowitz, the EVP of Development and Digital who was one of Nick Khan’s first major hires, Catherine Newman the EVP of Head of Marketing since that division was gutted, who came highly toured last year from being CMO at Manchester United Media (famous U.K. soccer team), Andy Levine, Vice President of International & Platform Strategy, Amanda Bloom, Director of Enterprise Master Data & Governance. Horowitz came from DAZN, but was a major player at ESPN. There was a lot of controversy over his hiring. Horowitz was a major player at ESPN behind the scenes as well as with Fox Sports, where he was let go over a sexual harassment investigation. When he was hired by WWE, because of that investigation, there were a lot of unhappy people who contacted us about the decision to hire him, but we never heard of any issues while he was in WWE.

Nick Khan announced a mandatory staff meeting at the offices on Tuesday.

TKO Holdings had a huge SEC release that went out today. The key is that for the first six months of this year, WWE generated $707.9 million and ended up with $88.7 million in profits. UFC generated $611.9 million but had $169.8 million in profits. UFC would have been even more profitable but because of the varying interest rate in some of their loans, the interest charges this year were way up.

Smackdown tonight is from Denver and it sold out with 12,700 tickets out as of a few hours ago. Lots of rumors about Dwayne Johnson only because we know he was in Boulder, CO for the Pat McAfee show and openly talked about possibly facing Roman Reigns at this year’s WrestleMania. We have a lot and covered the proposed Rock vs. Reigns planned match for SoFi Stadium extensively last year, and talked about it on today’s Observer radio as to what happened and why it didn’t happen. I don’t know why those close to Johnson like Brian Gewirtz kept claiming that there was nothing to the story and all made up when obviously we’d seen documentation regarding it, but there you go.

Tonight’s show has John Cena on the Grayson Waller Effect, Asuka vs. Bayley, Finn Balor vs A.J. Styles and L.A. Knight vs. The Miz.

Rampage tonight on TNT at 10 p.m. features the likely farewell of Jade Cargill, who faces Kris Statlander for the TBS title. Other matches are Lucha Bros & Hardys vs. Jeff Jarrett & Jay Lethal & Butcher & Blade, Matt Taven & Mike Benett vs Matt Sydal & Christopher Daniels and Acclaimed & Billy Gunn vs. Peter Avalon & The Outrunners in a non-title match.

This weekend we’ll be doing a poll on the CMLL Anniversary show, thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

For this weekend, we’re looking for reports on these shows:

  • WWE Smackdown tonight in Denver (dark matches only)
  • AEW Collision tomorrow night in State College, PA (matches not on the Collision broadcast, so ROH stuff and dark stuff)
  • WWE house show tomorrow night in Kennewick, WA
  • WWE house show Sunday in Boise, ID

We’re looking for results, finishes and angles to dave@wrestlingobserver.com

CMLL, the oldest wrestling promotion in the world, has its 90th anniversary show tomorrow night at Arena Mexico with Templario vs. Dragon Rojo Jr. in a mask vs. mask match on top, plus there will be a hair vs. hair match with either Ultimo Guerrero vs. Averno or Volador Jr. vs. Angel de Oro. Guerrero & Averno face Volador & Angel and the winning team will then face each other in a hair match. There is nothing in wrestling like the atmosphere at a sold out Arena Mexico, so this will be one of the highlight shows in wrestling of the year.

Paul Levesque appears on this week’s episode of “Billions” on Showtime. He plays himself. Chuck Roades, the US attorney character on the show asks Levesque for advice on how to execute a double turn, making a babyface a heel and a heel a babyface at the same time. He calls him Hunter and the conversation takes place in an empty arena with the Raw graphic prominently displayed (thanks to Joe Puccio)

Ticket sales have picked up for AEW Grand Slam on Wednesday. Yesterday sold more tickets for the show than any day since the first day. There were ticket price reductions that helped as a lot of early complaints were about the high prices. We’ve noted many times the new philosophy through the live events industry and early high pricing. Fact is when an act is hot, this strategy works, as it does for WWE which is still raising prices. It doesn’t work as well for volume of sales if an act isn’t hot although it may be an effective total gate strategy.

The final episode of the second season of Heels on STARZ is tonight at 10 p.m.

Today’s San Francisco Chronicle in the movie review section gave the movie Cassandro their highest possible rating (thanks to Derek Sousa)

Some matches were announced for the RevPro FantasticaMania shows. 9/23 at 2p.m. has Trent Seven & Hechicero & Ultimo Guerrero vs. Atlantis Jr. & Michael Oku & Guerrero Maya Jr., Titan vs Robbie X (if they gel this one could be great), Flash Morgan Webster & Mark Andrews vs. Okumura & Zandokan Jr. and Capitan Suicida vs. Wild Boar.

UFC Noche takes place tomorrow from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. I believe it’s the first T Mobile show since the pandemic which is far from a sellout. The show airs on ESPN+ starting at 7 p.m. Eastern time:

  • Joseline Knutsson (1115.5) vs. Marric Mann (115)
  • Alex Reyes (155.5) vs. Charlie Campbell (155)
  • Tracy Cortez (126) vs. Jasmine Jasudavicius (125.5)
  • Edgar Chairez (125) vs. Daniel Lacerda (125.5)
  • Roman Kopylov (185.5) vs. Josh Fremd (185.5)
  • Loopy Godiez (116) vs. Elise Reed (115.5)
  • Fernando Padilla (145.5) vs. Kyle Nelson (146)
  • Daniel Zelhuber (155) vs . Christos Giagos (156)
  • Raul Rosas Jr. (135) vs Terrence Mitchell (135.5)
  • Kevin Holland (170.5) vs. Jack Della Maddalena (171)
  • Alexa Grasso (124.5) vs. Valentina Shevchenko (124.5) for the flyweight title

MCW presents Bruiser Strong on 9/16 at the RJ Meyer Arena in Joppa, MD with an 11 man Bruiser Rumble.

Defy on 9/23 in Seattle at Washington Hall features Eddie Kingston vs. Rocky Romero for the New Japan Strong title, plus Christopher Daniels & Sinner & Saint & Soul vs The Bollywood Boyz & Curry Man & Guillermo Rosas, Artemis Spencer vs Starboy Charlie, Amira vs Bambi Hall, Galeno del Mal (son of Dr. Wagner Jr.) vs. Miles Deville and Cody Chhun vs KC Navarro. You must be 16 to attend. They also have a 10/13 show at the Yakima Valley Sundome features El Hijo del Vikingo

Combate Global runs Saturday night at 9:30 p.m. on Univision and Pramount+ with Estefania Rodriguez (4-0) vs. Stephanie Hernandez (3-1) in a women’s atomweight main event. Ivan Nunes Miranda, a former Mexican national boxing and kickboxing champion debuts in the semi against Loxbey Montalvan.

AIW’s annual JT Lightning Invitational tournament is this weekend, with a show tonight, Saturday at 3 p.m. and the final on Saturday at 7 p.m. at Temple Live in Cleveland. Tom Lawlor, Eric Taylor, Joseline Navarro Alec Price, Paul London, Colin Delaney, Mance Warner, Chavo Guerrero Jr., Joshua Bishop, Masato Tanaka and Dominic Garrini are among those appearing. Eddie Kingston appears Saturday night as do Matt Cardona and Steph De Lander.

Lucha Va Voom will be doing a tribute show for Cassandro on 9/22 at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles. That’s the same day the Cassandro movie gets released on Amazon Prime Video. Rey Misterio El Heredero, Misterioso Jr., Diva Salvaje, Jessy Ventura (not the governor), Pimpinela Escarlata, Bestia 666, Magno, Ll Cholo and others are all scheduled to appear.

The all-women’s Invicta promotion debuts in Boston on 10/27 at Citizens House with strawweight champion Danni McCormack (7-2) facing Karolina Wojcik (11-3) as the main event.