– There is no heat on Vickie Guerrero for finishing up with WWE this past week. She just wanted to move into the regular world.
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– WWE is dropping the term “pay-per-view.” From now on, the monthly Sunday shows are being called “special events.”
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– As noted, WWE Main Event on Ion is no more as the contract expired and the show will be airing exclusively on the WWE Network now. The lack of renewal doesn’t mean a lot because the $100,000 (ballpark figure) per week WWE was getting for the show wasn’t as important to their bottom line, at a time where they expect profits to rise greatly from the RAW and SmackDown TV rights and the Network.
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– WWE stock continues to plummet. As of this writing, the stock is down another 6.51%, and is down 21% since the company announced this past Monday that the WWE Network has 667,287 subscribers.
– InvestorPlace.com has an article here stating that WWE has little choice but to pursue “a sale to a larger rival.” The article noted that quality earning for the stock have been poor, as have the profit margins. It also added that diehard fans seem to be losing interest in the product.
– Global private investment research firm Lemelson Capital, LLC, issued a press release today reiterating its “sell” position on WWE stock. The firm believes that the stock is overvalued and will continue to slide. They believe that fair value for the stock is $8.25 to $11.88 “based on the company’s current revenue, profitability and other company and industry factors and trends.”
“WWE is facing multiple challenging factors, including an inflated trading value and negative trends in its historical growth, suggesting that the downward slide in the stock may continue,” said Father Emmanuel Lemelson, the firm’s Investment Manager.
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– As of this writing, #CancelNancyGrace is one of the top trends on Twitter. As noted yesterday, Grace ran a segment yesterday on the death of the Ultimate Warrior. Grace spoke about wrestlers dying of steroids and illegal drugs, and while she was discussing it, a list of wrestlers who died young was shown which included Owen Hart, whose death was not drug related at all.
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– Jim Ross posted his latest blog earlier today at this link, and discussed the recent comments by Grace. He wrote:
The polarizing Nancy Grace of HLN really was made to look ill informed and poorly prepared by her staff Wednesday night on her report of the death of the Ultimate Warrior. So much erroneous info was reported as fact that I actually felt bad for her. I’d like to believe that Ms Grace is not a mean person but she let down by her producers and research people notwithstanding those who wrote her script for her teleprompter.
For Ms Grace to implicate Owen Hart into any drug or steroid scandal is egregious and appalling…
Ms Grace was made to look incompetent by her own people who seemingly relied on old info for the thrust of their story on Warrior and apparently did little new research on the sports entertainment world as it exists today.
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Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
Representatives from Indianapolis, Columbus, Ohio, Toronto and Philadelphia were in New Orleans this past week to meet with WWE officials.
Columbus pitched the idea of holding a WrestleMania at Ohio Stadium, which holds 102,329 for football, meaning WWE could break the all-time attendance record. That record may be broken even earlier if 2015 is at Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
The cities above were likely interested in 2018 since Santa Clara, CA, is booked for 2015 and Dallas Cowboys Stadium is expected for 2016. Nothing is final for 2017 but Orlando is supposed to be the favorite.
Subscribe to The Wrestling Observer by clicking here. Each issue has coverage and analysis of all the major news, plus history pieces. New subscribers can also receive free classic issues.
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Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
– As of this afternoon, Christian still has not been cleared to wrestle. There is a lot of concern over his future.
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– WWE’s Scooby-Doo: WrestleMania Mystery was the #7 best-selling DVD and #11 best-selling Blu-ray in its first week of being released.
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– While WWE made the decision not to renew Ezekiel Jackson’s contract this month, word is that they will not be doing a lot of cutting, outside of developmental talents and disciplinary incidents. Instead, guys who aren’t used that reach an age where they don’t see future upside in them, their contracts may not be renewed.
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Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
– As noted, WWE has signed former NFL star Shawne Merriman to a deal. The idea is to bring him up similar to how WCW brought up Steve “Mongo” McMichael.
WWE is looking at training Merriman as an announcer, put him on TV while he’s also training to be a wrestler, and then transition into being a wrestler when he’s good enough.
There is a renewed interest within WWE when it comes to signing NFL players who are still young but their football careers are over.
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– Late at night on April 2nd, during WrestleMania week in New Orleans, Damien Sandow was going up to homeless people and handing them all $10 bills. It wasn’t something he was doing for publicity since almost nobody was around.
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– WWE will be doing more live WWE Network shows from Los Angeles during SummerSlam weekend, similar to how they did with WrestleMania XXX.
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– After Bo Dallas and Adam Rose come up to WWE’s main roster, the next NXT stars in line to come up are Sami Zayn and NXT Tag Team Champions The Ascension.
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Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
– CM Punk is being advertised as a guest on an episode of “Maron” on IFC with comedian Mark Maron. The new season starts in May.
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– There is talk of doing a three-way women’s tryout camp at the WWE Performance Center in June.
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– WWE officials have been talking about possibly repackaging Tyson Kidd.
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– The Ultimate Warrior’s theme song was played during Wednesday’s Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Detroit Tigers game in Los Angeles.
In a related note, the Cleveland Indians have been using Daniel Bryan’s version of “Flight of the Valkyries”, which switches from their use of John Cena’s theme from last season.
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– Hornswoggle will be billed as Dylan “Hornswoggle” Postl in the WWE Studios’ Leprechaun reboot that comes out later this year.
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– Party City presented Make-A-Wish with a check for $300,000 at WrestleMania XXX Axxess in New Orleans last week. The check was presented to Make-A-Wish representatives and 31 Wish Kids. In the past three years, WWE and Part City have raised nearly $750,000.
