News! News! Get your news! Read all about it right here! Welcome one and all to your weekly irrelevant round-up of the week’s hottest stories in pro wrestling. Pro Wrestling Post Week In Review 7/28/19. As always, I, “Smart” Mark Blake, have scoured the internet to find the biggest and most interesting stories. Enough of me lets get into this week’s Week In Review! –
Dragon Gate & Stardom Officials Met With Triple H
During WWE’s tour of Japan last month, Triple H met with officials from Dragon Gate & Stardom, according to Wrestling Observer.
Dave Meltzer of the Observer reported that Triple H and WWE officials are targeting both Japan and Australia for their next wave of potential signings. One potential Australian talent that might have been contacted is Melbourne City Wrestling’s, Adam Brookes.
In a promo for the promotion recently he stated that he was made an offer from an unnamed company, but will not leave MCW until he has reached his goal of capturing the MCW Heavyweight Championship.
There is a raft of untapped talent in Australia and their scene is booming. A great time for WWE to check out and get first looks.
Impact Wrestling/AXS TV Deal Fallen Through?
News coming from PWInsider this week that the rumored buyout of Impact Wrestling by AXS TV had indeed fallen through.
Anthem (Impact Wrestling’s parent company) had been talking to AXS since December of last year. The talks were to buy the company and move the weekly TV show over to the AXS network.
The Wrestling Observer has been quoted saying that the deal was “dead” as the talks had fallen through. Dave Meltzer wrote that “Talks with AXS have appeared to have fallen through which is a disaster since the company has had the expectation they would get on AXS for months”.
It was only on Tuesday of last week that Impact announced that they had renewed their contract with Twitch to continue streaming their show. Which in turn could have been the death knell for the AXS TV deal.
IMPACT Wrestling Renews Agreement with @Twitch, Expands Weekly Content Production
READ HERE: https://t.co/zZsod4F1N0 pic.twitter.com/MeDHIH6FFE
— TNA Wrestling (@ThisIsTNA) July 23, 2019
If indeed the deal has fallen through, Anthem will need to begin talks with other prospective networks quickly. The channel Impact’s show is on now – Pursuit – is hardly watched at all. The average viewership is roughly 10k viewers and recently the shows have had many programming errors (wrong episodes shown, incorrect graphics, etc).
WWE Network To Introduce Free & Premium Tiers
The eagle-eyed WWE Network subscribers amongst you will have noticed that the site has been freshened up with a brand new look.
What you may not have noticed is that WWE announced on Thursday that they will be launching “free” and “VIP” tiers over the next few months –
“Over the next few months we plan to launch a free tier with select WWE programming and – a few months after that – a VIP tier with additional programming similar to the EVOLVE 10th anniversary celebration that WWE Network streamed earlier this month”.
.@WWENetwork has been updated this week with a sleeker design, simpler navigation and smarter search tools to help you enjoy all of @WWE’s award-winning programming. https://t.co/LvuoHYhX5D
— WWE Network (@WWENetwork) July 27, 2019
At the time of writing, there has been no information on what the VIP tier will contain or it’s price. It has been rumored for quite some time that the Network would have content from their indie “partners” such as EVOLVE, ICW, wXw, and PROGRESS. It’s worth noting that WWE referenced EVOLVE by name in their press release.
ROH And NWA Terminate Their Relationship
On Thursday of last week, Ring Of Honor and the National Wrestling Alliance officially ended their working relationship.
PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that even though both companies have gone their separate ways, the door is always open to working together again in the future.
As soon as the news was announced, ROH pulled the current NWA World’s Heavyweight Champion Nick Aldis from their Summer Supercard event. Dave Lagana, NWA Vice President, has also stopped working on ROH’s production team.
That’s it for today’s Pro Wrestling Post Week In Review for 7/28/19. Some great little nuggets of news if I do say so myself. As always I thank you all for reading not only my work but all the work here at PWP each and every week. It doesn’t go unnoticed. We’ll see you back next week for another edition of Week in Review!
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