WWE Record Breaking Revenue/Big E Injury

here on or Wrestling Observer Live. We are here every day Monday through Friday, New Pacific three Eastern, Sunday three Pacific sixth Eastern, Saturdays at Tenday and Pacific one Eastern

with Jim Valley. And we got a lot to get into here today Friday, here on this program, and I will be going solo at least for half this show as Mike simper viv fairly struck some sort of animal with his vehicle and he's getting a rental car as we speak, so anyway, he's not gonna be here today, But today Melt will be joining us in the second segment of the show talking about the biggest stories in the newest edition of the Wrestling Observer newsletter, including w

w E once again record breaking revenue for a quarter and it's only gonna go up as a lot of these television deals are escalating. Also great news for a w business. The Forbidden Door pay per views sold out pretty much immediately and a lot more. But I do want to mention the beginning of the show here. Best wishes too. Big E provided an update on his recovery from a broken neck and a tweet on Friday. The former w W champion shared the C one vertebra apparently

is not healing optimally. He is going to spend another four to six weeks in a neck brace in hopes of avoiding fusion surgery. For those desires of an update, he says, my SEE one apparently is not healing optimally, spending on four to six months in a brace, hopes I can avoid a fusion. But don't you frets. I've a tremendous support system and what shall be shall be. Of course. He broke his neck March eleven when he took an overhead belly to belly from Ridge, Holland and

landed right on top of his head. Fractured his C one and his C six, but they were not displaced. No spinal cords damage, no ligament damage. So he was very, very lucky, and I hope you will continue to be lucky here and not need to get fusion surgery. So that's the update on Biggie and all the best to him, his family and his friends. We're gonna do break. We come back all of the news. Wrestling Observer Live back in the show. Bright Nowver is here, Wrestling Observer Live.

No Mike Supper VV, but he will be back very soon. Dave Meltson joining us for the second segment of the show here and uh, We've got a lot of business

news to get into. I'm mostly gonna talk the business news with Dave, but a couple of notes here and what's becoming old had w W announced another record of breaking quarter on Thursday, three hundred and thirty three million in revenue in the first three months of two year over a year, increase of twenty seven operating income ninety two point four million for the quarter, increase of forty two stock down over three percent for the day at nine,

although they weren't the only ones with stocks down. Revenue increased Drivers media rights thirty six million year over a year thanks to the February Saudi Arabia elimination at Chamber Show. Oh yes, Live events up twenty three point one million from just a half million a year a year ago.

Consumer products increased eleven million. They made so much money during the pandemic and now out as they have opened up everything again, now they're making even more money than they made in the pandemic as a result of different things. Live events in particular, you don't run a lot of live events in the pandemic when you're in that thunderdome.

The video game part of the consumer products increase in edition A four and a half million of live event merchandise, offsetting at two point three million dollar dip in e commerce revenue. Yeah, a pandemic ends and people stop buying stuff online and they go to shows and buy stuff.

That's what happened here. They mentioned their supporting press release, multi year expansion of content for A and E, which we'll see one and thirty plus new hours of w w E theme series and specials, their m E n A region broadcast deal with NBC Group, long term et comment commerce licensed merchandise deal with Fanatics, release of w

W E two KWO WrestleMania thirty eight. They claimed in terms of Peacock that domestic viewership was up year over year, global unique viewership up, making it the most of you quote premium a live event in company history. Viewership in India record one million views increase a year over a year. So yeah, things going very very well expected for and their television deals still have some time left, so those deals will only increase and then it will be time

to negotiate a new deal. And provided there is not a global economic collapse or something crazy, they're gonna get an even bigger deal the next time around. So long story short. If you're like, if you're hoping for change, you know, like raw for exast, I mean, don't hold your breath. They're gonna keep doing what they're doing, creating content, whether it's good or bad. People are paying for content, and so there you go. We also had a double

business news. The remaining three thousand tickets for June's a W versus New Japan Forbidden Door pay per view sold out in minutes Friday as part of the public on sale ensuring the event Chicago's United Center will be sold out as fall. As Thursday's pre sale, they sold eleven thousand tickets in forty minutes on Thursday, meaning on Sunday, UH June. Event will have over fourteen thousand fans in attendance. Final number will depend on how many production hold tickets

will be released. First co promoted a W New Japan event, So for those of you concerned that nobody knows the amount New Japan, they're not gonna go this show, well they do. So this is the second time they've done huge numbers without any matches. Well actually the the Punk announcement, they didn't announce Punk was going to be there, but I think everybody knew, and so they sold twelve thousand tick gets in their first pre sale and that ended

up being free sixteen for the night. And this one probably will be doing somewhere in that neighborhood, although it's a as a big event. There might be uh perhaps a more area taken up for production, but I guess we'll see. But that's the update. Sold out very very quickly. Same thing with the Double or Nothing show coming up at the end of this month. That things sold out very very quickly, so fans reached in the a W

Big Shows. A W prepared to introduce trios titles we talked about this in the new edition of the Wrestling Observer newsletter, which of course you can read in its entirety at a Wrestling Observer dot com, as well as all of the back issues. Dave wrote that Trio's title belts have been made, so now it is just a

matter of when they pull the trigger. Tony Cohn was asked about making trios titles, gave the indication a few months ago that it was happening, but they didn't want to do the tournament until Kenny Omega was back, and Tony Cohn, in a media call it was actually months ago, noted that he will be more interested in Trio's division when Kenny is back. He said, we have a lot of great trios here, that's for sure. I'm very interested in it. I will be honest with you, This is

the most blunt answer I could give. I am much more receptive to doing it when Kenny Omega is back. Now, I don't know when Kenny Omega is going to come back, so I presume that he's going to continue to wait. But it's interesting when you watch the show and you

watch certain things that they did. For example, they were really strongly teasing split between the young Bucks and Adam Cole and Red Dragon, and then suddenly one week they just did a a segment where Adam Cole said, listen, we've all been losing, uh, but we are strong as a unit and we need to go prove that. And so then they did that ten man tag and they just slaughtered their opponents, and then they gave the shirts to the young Bucks. And there's been zero teases of

dissension in the last couple of weeks. So I could be reading too much into this, but when I saw that would appear to be a change, my presumption was they were expecting Kenny Omega back, and now maybe they're not expecting him back so soon, and that's why they're slowing down the split between the Bucks, Red Dragon, and Aticle. I don't know that. I have not been told that by anybody. I just watched the television and that's the conclusion that I came up with. But for all I know,

Kenny Omega could end up being the joker. I don't think he's gonna be the joker in the Own Heart Tournament, but I suppose he He could be Canadian. So that's the update on the six man titles. Also in the New Observer this week there was talking about that w w E business and how you know, business is great. They're making money hand over fist Saudias are paying them, you know, forty million dollars to show or whatever and making all this money off television. So like, if you

want the quality of the product, change, don't hold your breath. Well, you guys, remember when they they were teasing the USO's against r K bro in a unification match, and for weeks on television they teased a unification match, and then they went to do the contract signing and the big brawl broke out and Drew McIntyre ran in and Roman Reigns ran in, which, by the way, begs the question

did they ever signed that contract? Because if they signed the contract before the brawl, I mean, we should still be getting unification match in storyline. But maybe they didn't. But the void of this is they changed it to a six man and like an idiot, because I never learned, I thought, you know, they tease that damn match for weeks, So maybe tonight on SmackDown they're going to announce that all of the belts are on the line and you know,

unify the belts, whichever team wins. If if Drew's team wins, Drew becomes champion, and if Romans team wins, the USOS unified those belts and Roman retains his title. And as it turns out, this is not plans change. This is apparently planned from day one. From day one, the plan was, well, we're gonna tease a unification match for weeks, but we're not going to deliver. We are going to change it to a six man So all of those storylines, all

of that build it was all. I mean, you can't even have more of a bait and switch than that. They had no intentions of doing the unification matic. Now I guess maybe you know, plans do change sometimes, so I guess they could announce tonight that all the belts are on the line, but not looking like that it's gonna be the case. Back in a moment, Observer Live back in the show Bright Now Barez here Wrestling Observer

Alive Day. Melts are joining us here today. A new edition of the Wrestling Observer newsletter available right now at a Wrestling Observer dot com. And there's a lot of news in the issue this week. And we started this show here today Dave talking about the basics of w w e s quarterly report, and you've got all of the in depth, in depth news on this, So what's what's the big story here? There really wasn't a big story. Um, we're making a lot of money. They made a lot

of money. A couple of categories are up, a couple of categories are down. A lot more people are watching the pay per view shows because they're on Peacock, and because Peacock has expanded its audience. So um. And you know, they made a big deal about how the Elimination Chamber show was bigger than the prior Saudi show. But between the growth of Peacock, which was primarily due to the Olympics, and also the fact it was on a Saturday rather

than a Thursday, that kind of explains it. You know, Thursday afternoon isn't going to be a giant number compared to a Saturday afternoon. But you know, the Mania numbers were. They said it was the largest audience ever to watch a w W show, But I mean, it's probably the largest ever to watch a pay per view show. Um, in fact, it was, but you know, I mean it paled in comparison to like you know, you know, like

Austin and undertake million viewers for a raw. Yeah, yeah, you know, or or or Hulk Cogan and on Hulk Coogan And um, wasn't Andre the Giant. Yeah it was Hull. Yeah yeah, I mean it's not even it's probably one tenth of that. But they claimed it was the biggest ever. Um and you know, it's just a bunch of stuff. But there was no real, no real big news. You know.

Nick con was very bullish about Amazon and you know, Netflix and h Apple and people like that getting into the wrestling business and more people bidding um, you know, and that's probably gonna happen in w w is in great position because they are you know, they're not the NFL, but they are a um you know, they're there's somebody

that can move numbers. They have a big fan base and can help a streaming service and so, um, there's gonna be a lot of people interested in um in w w E when their rights fees come up, and I'm sure that they will get a big increase and they'll make even more money than they're making now. So we also had the story and the Observer about the main event of the pay per view this weekend and how it was always planned to be a six man Yes, it was. There was never that was always the plan.

This was the way they got into the plan. Um, I have no idea. If you're asking me why, I have no clue. But that's the deal. Well, I can I can understand if if all the belts were going to be on the line and you're still going to deliver what you advertise, which was a unification match, But I mean, I guess we'll find out tonight. But not looking like it's going to be any sort of unification match. Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no, definitely not a tag team title unification match on on

on this weekend. No, why would you do this? Um? You know it's weird because you know Vince. Vince has a rule of not like it's not not necessarily like like he does never rule against false advertising. He does that all the time. But he does have a rule as far as building up something that he eventually will not not deliver. And there is no plan for unification, or at least there was as of a couple of

days ago. That could always change. Um, although it makes no sense to do it, so I think that there's a good chance it won't be. So as far as like why he did it this way, I have no idea. Honestly, I think that it's probably something they thought would draw ratings and and uh but they you know, it doesn't look like they want once in a a Tag Team Champions.

I don't see any problem with having once in a Tag Team Champions because if you've been watching the show lately, like radio in riddle around both shows anyway, so we'll be they don't, but they don't want to. They don't want to keep that, you know, they don't want to keep that going for a long time. Um, having having having the stars on both shows, well both both both networks kind of want unique viewer, you know, unique Um

what is his unique rosters? I mean you can do some of that back and forth, but really Fox in particular really wants kind of exclusivity on its guy. All right. I I don't know, I've been I understand wanting like kind of an exclusive roster. But like I, all I ever hear about is is complaints about oh, we were promised this person and then this person went over there in the draft and then you know, we thought we

were gonna get this person. Like if you remember when they first went to Fox, they had a graphic of of a bunch of superstars for when they were advertising the move to Fox, and it was like Charlotte and and then they did the draft and none of them went there. And I remember there was like, you know, well, how come we didn't get this person out? You know

he could get everybody if we just combined these rosters. Yeah, well now all those people brock Lessner and Rhonda Rowsie and Charlotte Flair, they're all there now finally, and Roman reigns. So uh that, uh I know that. I got a text from a filthy Tom today and uh he was commenting on his Uh I think give it four and half stars him and Moxley. That match was great. Yeah, this guy is like, oh, there's no way it was more than four. That's how he is. This was a

great match, wasn't The match was great? Yea, thats the best time match I've ever seen in my life. It's the best time match I've ever seen. But I haven't seen like a million time matches, but I've seen I've seen dozens, and it was by far. It was by far the best. Um. I really liked the match structure. I mean that was the thing that I liked more than anything. Is just um you know, kind of like

the timing of what they did and when they did it. Um, And it had a real especially by the end, it had a real nice fight fuel and um, you know, it's like for an independent match, or for any match for that matter, it was really intense. I I really, um, you know, I mean it's like, I'm not a big fan of blood bath matches. And and the thing is is that match if you took away all the blood, it still would have been exactly as good. I mean, it was just a really well, really well put together match.

And Um, Moxley is you know, Mocks is really good at his He's fantastic at his style, and um, and Tom's a real good opponent for him because of the credibility. Is yeah. Yeah, Like when I saw that, when I saw that match, and it was like midway through the match,

it wasn't even at the end. Midway through the match, it was just like and Tom, you know the other thing that Tom is, he's he's there's certain things mannerisms that he does when he comes to the ring, and during a match, you know, not moves like as for like not moves wrestling. He's like really good and it's like it's it's sort of like something that is unique to me, that showmanship aspect that so many of the

younger guys don't have. And like I was watching, going like, you know, he really needs to be like an a w because they don't have anyone like him. Um you know. I mean it's not like he's better than everyone there or anything like that, but they have no one like him, and it's like the the you know, his I just really like his idea, not his ideas, but just what things that does. It really impressed me. Yeah. I watched his entrance and I was like, oh my god, this

guy is a superstar. I mean, he just he was so great during his his interest and of course Moxie comes out in the place just goes absolutely nuts. Yeah yeah, yeah, his his interest Moxley. You know, Moxley's got a fantastic or around him, especially on an independent show because, um, you know a lot of the top guys um will go to an independent show and they'll work like they would work on television, and independent wrestling is very different

from television wrestling, and Moxley totally gets the difference. Yeah. I remember there was another DeFi show and I remember the Briscos were there and uh my god, they worked there asses off on this DeFi show. I remember watching this mansion. I'm thinking, like, do they think it's Final Battle or something like that because they worked so hard and man, Moxi went out there and this guy didn't half acid ever. I mean, dude, he went out there and just was I mean, he was on fire. And

I'm and that's the thing. It's like a guy at his pay level working in an independent show could just basically make an appearance, you know what I mean, an appearance, do his you know, do his moves that people want to see and everybody want to be happy. But he went way above and beyond, you know. So yeah, that match was Um, that was a tremendous match. Yeah yeah, so a w huh fan Forbidden Door is uh, it's

all sold out. It's all sold out. Immediately. All the people who thought that this concept wasn't viable, um at least as a as a as a live show, we know it is. I mean, pay per view will be the pay per view, but the ticket demand was the highest for any a w show since UH all Out and the highest actually of any show in the United States in a long long time, which will get people mad,

but it's just the truth, you know. I mean, there's nobody else that had twenty thousand people UH signed up at buy tickets on the pre sale that was never advertised at all. You know, it wasn't like it was for today when it was advertised. This was the day before. I mean, people didn't even most people didn't even know about it. Obviously, Obviously twenty thou people knew about it, and they were you know, there's there's no doubt they

were very much. Um, there was. It was. They were very lucky in a sense that the secondary market scalpers number one made a ton of money on the recent pay per view shows, so they knew to buy in. And secondly, um, there were no other big shows that went on sale that day, so a lot of the high level scalpers that don't touch wrestling, but just you know kind of like with what tickets were you gonna buy today? Um, there were like no big concerts, no

big sports events that went on sale that day. So um, there were a lot of people. There were a lot of secondary market tickets sold. But the reality is is that you know those those uh you know, like on the the show in Vegas, right double or nothing. Um, so far, the secondary market people have made about four times the ticket price a little under four times about three and a half times the ticket price that they paid for it. So it's not like, you know, the

demand isn't there, or oh it's just scalpers buying. It's like, actually scalpers are buying because the demand is so freaking high for these shows in you know, because they're in buildings too small for the ticket demand. That's the reality of it. The funny thing is the last time there was a joint show in America with New Japan, it also did a one million dollar a gate. Yes, so you would have you would have thought that, you know,

people would have learned it. You know, maybe New Japan and a WI doing a joint show is going to do all right? Yeah yeah, um yeah. I mean I was sure as a live show would do really good. I didn't I don't know it was a pay per view. I mean, like it's uncharted water. It'll do well. I mean, I'm sure it will do well, but you know, will it do like what see Him Punk did for his return? You know, I'm guessing no, but maybe it will and we'll all learn and then if we do, you know,

there'll be more. It's it's uh but yeah, I mean a would we gotta we gotta do a break, Sorry, Dave, but we'll talk more after the break on this and take your calls. Observer Live are the show. Brian elbre is here Wrestling Observer Alive. If you want the new Observer forty thousand words forty thousand words of news and information on pro wrestling, mixed martial arts, historical stories, analysis.

It's like a half a half a death of w c W every week Dave writes not quite half half of the original one third of the new and expanded edition. But anyway, you can get it at Wrestling Observer dot com. Your subscription gets you the new Observers, thousands of back issues, all of our new audio podcasts, including this show, and archives as well. So if you're a wrestling fan and you're not signed up to Wrestling Observer dot com, you're missing out, brother, So get up there and sign up

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If you want to send me a text four to five seven eight zero seven five six six, then is four to five seven zero seven, five six six. Brian at Wrestling Observer dot com is the email at Brian Alvarez on Twitter and of course at four W online on cameo. Do you know that you can get a Mother's Day cameo for just thirty five dollars? That's right, so don't miss out at four W on line thirty five bucks heading into Mother's Day, So go over there

and grab one now. Dynamite ratings very quickly, the show got killed by the NBA again eight thirty three thousand viewers, down about ten lowest numbers since May nineteen one over a year ago, almost a year ago, point three two in eighteen to forty nine, second lowest rating of the year in that category. However, as noted, it was the n b A and uh, the show is actually fourth on cable in eighteen forty nine, trailing only the NBA, the n b A and the NBA. So for those

of you that were panicking yesterday, don't. For those of you that are gonna panic when you get to the Rampage numbers on Monday, don't bro. If Rampage even makes four hundred thousand, they should they should throw a party because that show is starting in less than two hours. Okay, my kids not even out of school, and Rampage is airing today to thirty Pacific five thirty Eastern. Not an ideal time. And for those of you that were looking

at the quarters, Rendan Thurston had the quarters. And yeah, there was a pretty big, pretty big collapse in the last half hour of the show, which coincides with that last hour that people were pretty critical of. They actually lost, uh, not a significant but a fair amount of viewers for the end of the Dante Martin Ray Phoenix match that the fans were going crazy for. They lost viewers there, and uh it pretty much stayed at that level for

the main event. Ring of Honor. Ah was the unification match. Um I couldn't get both of those, but suffice to say the show would have done probably what are the the show averaged eight thirty three. The show would have averaged eight fifty or eight sixty if you would have taken out the last half hour of the show. But the last half hour dropped enough to drag the entire show down to thirty three. So that's that's basically what happened.

First hour and a half of the show was very very stable at about eight sixty or so, and then it fell off there at the end. So anyway, let's uh see who's on the line. I know who's on the line because we have one person that calls from Old Bellows Falls in the year, Dagan, what's up? What's

going on? Brian? What's up? Twitch homies? So I wanted to continue that discussion you were just having with Dave about the ticket demand for some of these big A W shows, and it's kind of clear to me that they could start to run some bigger venues for some

of these shows. You know, I was just at that Boston show a few weeks ago, and as a there's a small venue and I'm kind of thinking like this idea of potentially running thinking outside of the box a bit and maybe running like a Friendly Park in Boston or like a Wrigley Field in Chicago. I wanted to see what you thought about the idea of them starting to run some bigger venues or potentially some venues that you wouldn't expect, like Arthur Ash Stadium last year. Anyway,

thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I want to thank you very much for the call. I mean, here, here are the things that are obvious to me. Okay. Number one, for the bigger shows, I'm not talking about your your average Dynamite, because I'm not sure that Dynamite should be

regularly running twelve thousand seed buildings. I think that that would be a mistake because they're I don't think they're selling twelve thousand tickets every week for Dynamite, but for the bigger shows, for the pay per views, for the new Japan versus a w stuff like that. There's two things that are obvious. They need to run bigger buildings, and they need to raise the prices. And of course it's gonna be experimental because the amount of the ticket prices.

Now it's clear that they would sell significantly more tickets too many of these events. Of course, if you raise the ticket price, maybe they wouldn't sell that many. I don't know. But you know, as Dave noted, they've got double or nothing coming at the end of the month, and scalpers when they bought those tickets, are selling those tickets for four times what a W charge. That tells you something a W is under charging for their tickets for live events. Now my recommending they go out there

and start gouging people. No, but I mean it's not like w W E tickets are cheap. I mean, I know Tony wants to make these tickets accessible and everything like that, but you know, when you've got twenty thousand people that are ready for a a pre sale and uh, and twelve thousand get tickets immediately, Bro, there's eight thousand people where those tickets weren't accessible. It doesn't matter what

the price was, they couldn't get a ticket. So uh, it's going to be something needs to change, and that is either raising ticket prices, expanding the size of the buildings or both and then finding the balance. I mean, if you can, if you can regularly sell twenty tickets to your four quarterly pay per views and increase prices by ten. You know, this is a business, and we don't know what the television landscape is going to be

when it's time for them to get a renewal. They may end up getting a renewal for the exact same price that they're getting now. And if you look at all the people they're signing and how they want to be competitive and how they don't want to lose people, the w W E, I mean, you're gonna have to be paying your top stars more. Well, where's the money coming from if you're making the same television deal money, Well, you need to sell some tickets. You need to uh

sell more tickets. You need to raise the price of the tickets. You need to make your money in different ways. So I think the easiest way is raise the ticket prices a little. I'm not saying double them necessarily. And uh and for the big shows clearly run some bigger buildings of twenty people are in the queue for the pre sale, twenty people get their tickets and not twelve. So I think those are the two things that that

I think. I mean, obviously there's a lot of things like get more bidders, get a streaming deal, sign us all beside the point, But this is something you could do now and the evidence is there based on what's going on, that you could sell more tickets to big shows and raise surprises. If you want to call us eight four four seven. Phone lines are open, so jump on if you had. Like everybody, we've also got what

other news have we got here? During a comedy show Thursday night, Malcolm Bivens addressed his release from w w E. He said, there's a lot of rumors, a lot of speculation. Was I offered a contract in February? Yes? Did I say no to this contract? Yes? Was I offered to be with Omas? No? No one said a word to me about managing Omas. Was I told about the maiden roster? Yes? And people i think I'm crazy, Like Malcolm, you threw away millions. Potentially you walked away. Yeah, he says I

did because I didn't want to do it anymore. And unfortunately I just wasn't happy it's stand and deliver. At a conversation with the head writer and I told him so. And then two weeks ago I said the same thing. I don't think this is for me, and that's okay. Your happiness is not dictated by what people say you should do. It is dictated by what you think that you should do. He was a manature obviously of the diamond mine, and which is, by the way, it's impossible

to say diamond mind. I've noticed it's always diamond mind. But anyway, he says, shout out to Brutus Julius Ivy. I'm gonna miss them. I love them like they were my kids. But you know, sometimes in life you have to move on. People ask me, or they have been asking me, Malcolm, is this it for you? Is this it as far as pro wrestling goes? And for now I have to say yes. I have to say yes, will I I'm back maybe maybe for the right price. So right now, at this point, Malcolm BIBBNS is out

of pro wrestling. And it sure is amazing how many people go through this system, in the main roster system and they just want out and then like passion is killed. I mean, what this is is it's a It's a sports entertainment company. And and if you grew up and you you love sports entertainment and you want to be a sports entertainer, I mean, maybe this is for you.

If you are a if you grew up a professional wrestling fan and you and your brother listened to this podcast in college or whatever, and you went to indie shows and you worked on the independence and you you did professional wrestling, well this place probab reason for you. And Roderick Strong has tried to get out, can't get out. Candice Larray now free agent, so she can go anywhere she wants if that's what she ends up wanting to do.

So yeah, I mean, what what's what's happening here is We've talked about it before, is this business is split. If you are if you're an old school professional wrestling fan, then you're gonna grabbed eight towards a w and New Japan and etcetera, etcetera. And if you grew up and you love w w E and w w E style and you went to w w E shows and you never watch anything else, well that's probably gonna be the place for you because you probably aren't gonna like it

anywhere else. So it's gonna be very interesting. We've talked about you know, everyone gets mad at me for talking about n x T, but there's a reason I talked about it, Like that's the future of w w E. N I l deals. People didn't grow up wrestling fans. People offered money to go become wrestlers. Anybody can be trained to be a pro wrestler in this system that's there, that's their feeling. So this this you know, you watch a w watch n x T and and w w E,

and they're different products and they're only diverging further. They're not coming closer together. And what's gonna be interesting is you know, when I was a little kid, I I only watched w w E, and I watched Brett Hart, Sean Michaels, I watched Rick Flair when he was there, And Uh, I know people are going they're both they're both sports. You're right, they are both sports entertainment, but

they're totally different. This is diverging. Okay, w w E is way more entertainment than pro wrestling, and a w has met way more pro wrestling than entertainment. The booking

philosophies totally different. They're they're completely different. My point I was making a moment ago was I grew up in and uh and I loved WWF and when I was doing the y WF, you I would have been all I all I thought about was, man, you know w w F w w F Championship I got smartened up about and that was the end of wanting to do anything there or w c W or really or else except the indies. But the question is the kids today? What are the kids today? These young kids, where are

they gonna want to go? Are we gonna have kids growing up they just want to go straight to w w E. Are the kids growing up today wanting nothing to do with the w w E and only wanting a w new Japan, et cetera. And they're out there because I've talked to him back in a moment is they were lively ring and I think it's me that can My gosh, there's nothing that I won't try. But I'm back on the show right now. Barez here Wrestling

Observer Alive and uh what it asked me about? Got UFC Tomorrow Charles Oliver and Justin gaith G and uh no longer a championship match. Olivera missed wait by a half pound and his punishment is he has been stripped of the championship and tomorrow, if gaith G wins, he will win the championship, and if OLIVERA wins, he's still stripped to the title, So laying that hammer down. So if you were yeah, half pound half pound, but the

thing was, he missed by half pound. They gave him an hour, he still couldn't lose the half pound and so he flat out and missed weight. So that's the end of that. He is no longer the champion and cannot win the title tomorrow in their match. So if you're planning to get the UFC, that's the update on on that story. There, Ah, what we got here in the text message ben oh must I about n x

T Texas, Poor b J the Virgin. Whether he gets over or not, this is forever gonna be brought up to him and promos by his opponents that he was the nerd that couldn't get laid in n x T two point Oh. I hope he Well, you know, once he gets called up, I'm sure he'll get a new gimmick. If he ever gets called up. Well, someone's very uh, someone's very mad at me for getting banned from the chat. Too bad, brother, Well, when we do about it, if you got banned from the chat, you deserve it. So

don't get mad at me. Look in the mirror that goes for everybody. Okay, yeah, I was in a mood yesterday, so why would you push my buttons? That's it. You know what to do. Don't be an idiot, that's it. There's nothing worse than being an idiot getting banned and then saying it's somebody else's fault. That's it, putting up with this crap. Jeff Hardy is forty four and Bobby Fish is forty six. Yeah, it was it was rough. That match was rough. Anyway, We're gonna wrap it up

for today, every buddy Tomorrow. Jim Valley is going to be on the show to Pacific one Eastern andrews Arian on Sunday, and I'll be back on Monday. Also this weekend, tens of shows for subscribers to Wrestling Observer dot com. And that's it. Thanks. Mike has always callers and listeners ever for the studio. We'll talk to you next time Wrestling Observer Live. You have been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network