Since September 2017, every day has, of course, been Rusev Day.
WWE even released a calendar noting just that.
But, sadly, that’s not all they ended up releasing.
Rusev was let go from WWE in mid-April as part of the shock mass releases due to the
pandemic *cough* wanting to make money *cough*, leading those who still observerved the daily
international holiday to ask: is it called Miro Day now?
But unfortunately, even Miro - Rusev’s real name - is no more in the professional wrestling,
as he’s revealed he won’t be going to AEW, he won’t be going to New Japan, he
won’t, in fact, be going anywhere: “I’m done.
I’m done, man.
I’m just enjoying my Twitch.
I’m a professional Twitcher, YouTuber, content creator.
I’m not a wrestler anymore.
Can I be your favorite streamer?”
One last time, Rusev Day.
Best of luck, Miro.
I heard one of the best ways to grow your audience on YouTube is collaborations with
other YouTube channels in your niche…
Come on QuizzleMania.
Eric Young was also released by WWE at the same time as Rusev.
But rather than give up on wrestling altogether for drinking energy beverages and playing
Fortnite - he returned to IMPACT Wrestling to feud over their world title, and shoot
on WWE at every available opportunity.
After already calling his former contractor ‘broken’ on Busted Open Radio, Young has
now told Vince McMahon off… to Chris Van Vliet:
“If you have a three hour pro wrestling television show and you can't find something
for me to do, then you're failing as a leader.
Plain and simple.
You failed your company.
You failed the shareholders, you failed the fans and you failed yourself.”
“I would tell him to him his face, 'you failed as a leader.
You can't find something for Eric Young to do.’”
And it seems the stock market is finally realising this too.
Brandon Ross, Richard Greenfield, and Mark Kelley of Lightshed Partners - a technology,
media and telecommunications research company - have issued a fascinating report on WWE’s
falling ratings, share performance and more, and it paints a damning picture for the company.
On the big money deals covering up deeper financial problems: “The domestic [TV network]
renewals for Raw and SmackDown were a financial game-changer for the company.
And the reason the stock crumbled is because international deals did not follow the same
trajectory…”
On the falling ratings: “The content has not resonated.
Ratings have been disappointing essentially since the current deals were inked.”
“In July, AEW was up 11% versus April on average.
NXT has notably improved against both March and April in the past two months.
Meanwhile, both Raw and SmackDown have taken another leg down in the past month, with Raw
down 10% and SmackDown down 8% compared to the prior month and both down 15% compared
to April.”
And how, ultimately for a content company, creative, and thus the head of creative, is
to blame: “COVID or no COVID, creative appears to be at the center of the issues.
Vince McMahon has acknowledged things need to change multiple times.
However, while there have been short lived experiments, the content appears to continuously
return to a similar formula under his absolute control.”
“One of the largest problems we have identified is an inability to create new Superstars...The
big draws for major events have been in bringing back even older wrestlers such as Goldberg
and The Undertaker.
That is a band-aid, not a long-term strategy.”
Click the link in the video description below for a more detailed dive into the report.
And make sure you tune in tomorrow - because it’s my favourite four times a year event:
WWE’s quarterly earnings report!
Where McMahon will have to justify his firing of Paul Heyman.
But enough with the numbers for now, because it’s time to review last night’s episode
of AEW Dynamite - which is huge in the 18-49 demo - in about 5 minutes!
The show opened with the huge social distancing be damned match - a ten man tag with the Best
Friends and Jurassic Express teaming to take on the fully renumbered Inner Circle, now
with 20% more Spanish God sexiness.
This was one of the most anticipated matches on the show, which might explain why it was
slightly disappointing.
The comedy was Orange Cassidy’s usual low effort offence, which is in danger of going
off without the live crowd now, and the superficial highspots failed to tie into a greater sense
of drama.
Matt Hardy picked his feud back up with Guevarra, pushing him off the top rope into Luchasaurus’s
boot for Sammy to lose.
Later on, an enraged Chris Jericho announced a rematch between him and Cassidy for two
weeks time, and a debate with a huge guest moderator - oh, I hope it’s Japanese Death
Match Legend Luthor! - for next Wednesday.
The rest of the episode, thankfully, worked much better than the opener, despite the saltiest
of salty JRs on commentary.
Without Excalibur leading the play-by-play, presumably because of clips resurfacing of
him saying the N word in a wrestling program 15 years ago, something he already apologised
for last year, JR’s cantankerous attitude became overbearing on the show.
I thought Taz was brilliant filling in, though, where he somehow put over Warhorse, Cody,
indie wrestling, AEW and the TNT title all at the same time next.
Which was needed, as outside of Justin Roberts’ excellent ring introduction “He weighs 4,000
pounds of raw heavy metal and he is here to rule ass” - what does ruling ass even mean?
- Warhorse didn’t get a prematch vignette or promo like previously challengers to Cody.
I really liked his presence though.
It’s like if the Ultimate Warrior could actually wrestle.
Cody continued to be a heel who just shakes his opponent’s hand after the match - cockily
doing push-ups in one commercial break.
But it was the post-match that’s important here.
Warhorse tapped, and then the Dark Order ran down to attack them both - bringing out who
who who?
The next stage in Zack Ryder’s evolution - Matt Cardona, taking his shirt off as quickly
as possible to show how ripped he’s gotten in lockdown.
I’ve… also gotten that ripped in lockdown.
Peanut butter has protein in.
It’s not surprising Cardona has joined his real life best friend forever in AEW.
Cody said last year that of all the then current WWE roster, he’d like to recruit Ryder the
most.
It was rather underplayed without a crowd and coming midway through the show though.
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody will team together against the Dark Order next week
- which might be a nice dynamic of having Cardona go up against the Vince McMahon/WWE
parody faction, or, maybe even turning on Rhodes.
The FTR had an awesome pre-filmed contract signing, where they got Arn Anderson to read
over the details as a tag team expert, for Hangman Page to toast them afterwards.
Which was followed by Page and Kenny Omega defending their tag titles against Evil Uno
and Stu Grayson of the Dark Order.
The match itself was typically great, considering the wrestlers involved, but it’s the storyline
context surrounding it that’s so engrossing.
Brodie Lee pacing around watching on from the stage.
Colt Cabana saying he’s not in the Dark Order on commentary, he’s just hanging out
with this misunderstood, totally fine group.
Anna Jay now amongst their ranks.
And Kenny and Page momentarily imploding when Hangman haphazardly started the match before
Omega had made his entrance.
Omega and Page retained, which prompted the Dark Order to surround the ring - like a good
version of the infamous December angle we don’t talk about anymore - for the Young
Bucks and, mostly awesomely, FTR to make the save!
AEW’s tag division is otherworldly.
Their women’s division, though, meh, not so good.
After a quick vignette in lieu of an entrance, Diamante lost to Shida in a non-title match,
kind of stopping dead any momentum she had after last week’s Dynamite debut win.
Don’t worry, I’m sure AEW are just waiting for their Deadly Draw Women’s Tag Team Tournament
to properly push the division, which they announced will be randomly selected (like
Nyla Rose getting paired with Cameron of the Funkadactyls), will have this trophy to fight
for, and… will start on Monday on their YouTube channel.
It’s not even on Dark.
It seems they’re saving all the storylines for the World Title instead, with MJF cutting
an excellent presidential rally promo - where he told his female assistant to smile more,
it’ll make her prettier - to launch his campaign to become our new World Champion.
Interestingly, he framed his opposition to Jon Moxley along ideological lines, not simply
who is better than who.
MJF is a wrestler’s wrestler, whereas Moxley has instilled a culture of highspots and hardcore
into the promotion.
Mox vs MJF could be the All Out program, but before then, Jon has to get through Brian
Cage and Darby Allin.
Because at the end of the frantic tornado tag main event, Mox and Allin stared each
other down ahead of their title match next week.
AEW is doing a superb job of having multiple feuds over one title at a time.
And the main event itself was a lot of fun, with Allin being a smart babyface and jumping
Cage and Ricky Starks during their entrance, Taz getting excited about Cage’s traps looking
like pistons - they’re pistons Jon! - and one of the most brutal spots in company history,
Allin winning after stomping a thumbtacked skateboard onto Ricky’s back!
That was this week’s Dynamite in about 5 minutes.
Let me know what you thought of the show in the comments down below, where I’ll be replying
to people FROM OUTTA Brian Cage’s pistons - looks at those pistons, Jon, the pistons!
It’s a mark of AEW’s consistent high standards that a show with so much great stuff on is
only really Middle of the Rhodes.
The tag opener was a let down, and the women’s division an afterthought, but there was still
plenty of terrific stuff on this episode.
This week’s Dynamite is 3 out of 5.
And now I’ve got some really exciting news... ...as announced on last night’s episode
of QuizzleMania, we will now be making shows for Cineworld’s YouTube channel - who are
one of the biggest cinema chains in the world!
Aside from wrestling, movies are one of our biggest passions here (fun fact, I have a
Master in Film Theory), and we’re starting this Friday at 3pm UK with a livestreamed
movie-themed version of QuizzleMania…
CineMania.
It took us ages to come up with that name.
Click on the Cineworld logo onscreen now to subscribe to their channel and enable notifications
to always on so you know first when CineMania is about to start!
We’re all really excited to be working with Cineworld, and I’d really appreciate it
if you could go over and check us out over there.
And also watch the epic QuizzleMania 15 from last night, featuring the return of Sean Ross
Sapp.
I’ve been Oli Davis, and that was wrestling!