AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com
As of this writing, WWE has no plans to cancel or move this
Saturday's Night of Champions PLE, or the preceding night's
Friday Night Smackdown in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia despite the
US attack on potential nuclear weapons development sites in
Iran this past Saturday.
They have at least 50 million reasons not to do so (plus
many millions of whatever remains in TKO's deal with the
Saudis). Assuming the shows go on, it wouldn't be the first
time WWE traveled into an active potential war zone. WWE
traveled into outright active war zones during early Tribute
to the Troops shows. There was at least one instance where
missiles landed near a base WWE was visiting. In 2006, at
Camp Victory in Baghdad the day of taping, a mortar attack
happened near the camp, injuring 14 soldiers.
In further confirmation of TKO's plans to act in a political
direction, it was announced that TKO has appointed Dean
Garfield as Senior Vice President of Government Affairs,
effective June 16. In this newly created role, Garfield will
lead the company’s government affairs activities.
The press release announcing his hire said: “Dean’s
extensive public policy experience will be integral to
supercharging TKO’s government relations strategy, including
strengthening our engagement with governments to bring our
marquee events to fans in all regions of the world,”
said Krauss. “Our existing international partnerships
with Western Australia, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia, as well
as domestically with Minnesota, New Jersey, and California,
demonstrate the significant demand for our properties’ live
events, and we expect, with Dean’s leadership, to expand our
growth in this area.” Garfield will lead a team
responsible for public policy initiatives and political
engagement, as well as support TKO’s subsidies and
incentives efforts.
Contrast with the following from AEW Grand Slam Mexico:
Brody King came out at Arena Mexico with a "Abolish ICE" t-
shirt, visible on the telecast and spread clearly via
countless pictures on social media.
King's actions got attention on TMZ, FNC and even as the
face of a MSNBC story on opposition to Administration
immigration policy.
Then there was the speech by Hangman Adam Page to open Grand
Slam Mexico on TBS:
"Hi, my name is Hangman and I wanna apologize for my
Spanish cause it's not the best, but it's a little better
than much gringos, so I will try. When I was young my family
had a tobacco farm, and every Summer, like 6 men would come
from Ruiz, Nayarit to work [says their names]. Every year I
worked with them, and they taught me about Mexico. They were
hard workers, honest, and cared for their families. They
taught me that we are all better when we work together. This is why I want to say thank you--thank you for having us
in your house tonight. Thanks for this collaboration between
AEW and CMLL cause when we work together, we can change
the world. Now, I will talk about our champion Jon
Moxley. I'm sorry to say that I don't have a match tonight,
and I'm not allowed to be in the arena during his match...
but nobody said anything about after the match... so after
all that, I will beat his ass! Until then, thank you to
everyone here in Arena Mexico, and I'll see you soon."
If there was any doubt about AEW's (and Tony Khan's)
feelings as a company...those words made their way into the
official report of the show on their website.
As mentioned in this blog a couple of weeks ago, WWE is now
counter-programming nearly every AEW PPV. It was already
known a month ago that WWE would counter program AEW ALL IN
with a Saturday Night's Main Event on the same day as ALL IN
Texas (July 12), then an all-women's PLE, EVOLUTION on July
13.
Then, Memorial Day weekend, WWE announced NXT Great American
Bash would take place July 12 at Center Stage Theater in
Atlanta with a listed 3:00 pm bell time, taking place before
Saturday Night’s Main Event that evening, counter-
programming ALL IN Texas with three separate PLEs that
weekend, including the Great American Bash directly head-to-
head.
I won't be surprised if we see Mariah May going against Jacy
Jayne for the NXT Women's Title at Great American Bash to
try to steal buzz from ALL IN in general and specifically
the Toni Storm-Mercedes Moné match.
I also mentioned that TKO is running these PLEs head-to-head
with 2 Beyonce concerts at Mercedes-Benz Stadium that
Friday, July 11 and Sunday, July 13 (head-to-head with
Beyonce).
Considering that NXT Great American Bash has traditionally
been a TV special, first on USA Network then CW, I'm
surprised CW isn't complaining to TKO that Great American
Bash isn't being aired as a special Tuesday night show that
would have popped a better than average rating .
Now Saturday Night's Main Event will officially feature (as
has been rumored for weeks) Goldberg in what is assumed to
be his retirement match taking on WWE World Champion
Gunther. On RAW, WWE used the angle from last October at Bad
Blood where Gunther, Goldberg, and Goldberg’s son Gage were
involved in a segment as the step-off point. But it was sad
to see last Monday night. The fact was that Goldberg looked
OLD. He looked shorter, and he looked smaller. He wasn't
walking especially well. Goldberg himself mentioned injury
issues in his training leading up to his retirement match.
Side note on more counter-programming: WWE announced last
Thursday a Monday Night RAW on August 18 at the Xfinity
Mobile Arena (aka Wells Fargo Center), preceding the NXT on
August 19 at the 2300 (ECW) Arena, weeks prior to the AEW
residency at the 2300 Arena from August 27-September 11.
To WBD and AEW...to further substantiate what was said in
this blog about Dave Meltzer and others making clear that
recent events won't affect AEW's TV deal a few weeks back;
Yahoo Sports quoted Tony Khan last Wednesday as saying the
reorganization of Warner Brothers Discovery won't hurt All
Elite Wrestling's (AEW) business. "We have great
relationships with everybody at the top, both on global
networks and streaming and studios," Khan told Yahoo
Finance at the Cannes Lions International Festival of
Creativity [last] Tuesday. "Mr. Zaslav [CEO David Zaslav]
himself put our deal together. Gunnar [CFO Gunnar
Wiedenfels], who will be running global networks, also was
very involved in our deal. The two of them and Bruce
Campbell really negotiated (their most recent contract) with
AEW and myself and my team. So, on both sides, we’ve got the
great relationships and both sides that really love AEW and
have come to be great partners with AEW,” Khan said.
Khan also had one other interesting quote: "A lot of
people thought when you start simulcasting, a lot of people
are gonna migrate to streaming. Actually, our cable audience
when we started simulcasting went up"
There'll be another shift for Collision this week, this time
simply a shift of night for airing the show....as Collision
will air on Thursday instead of Saturday; owing to TNT
airing the one Saturday night NASCAR race that is part of
their segment of the NASCAR TV season, the Quaker State 400
out of Atlanta from 7:00-10:30 pm. WWE is also airing the
Night of Champions PLE Saturday afternoon at 1:00 pm ET from
Saudi Arabia. WBD and AEW have sought to avoid same day
conflicts with WWE PLEs.
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