SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)…
Last night’s (5/18) episode of WWE Monday Night Raw on USA Network drew a 1.32 rating, down from last week’s post-Money in the Bank PPV episode, which drew a six week high rating of 1.46. The monthly average for May is 1.34. The average for 2020 so far is 1.51.
First hour viewership was 1.818 million. Second hour viewership was 1.810. Third hour viewership dropped to 1.644. That’s a first-to-third hour dropoff of 174,000, below the yearly average dropoff of 296,000. The third hour opened with the return of Kevin Owens hosting The Kevin Owens Show and closed with Drew McIntyre vs. King Corbin.
That was good enough for Raw to finish in positions 1, 2, and 5 in the cable rankings Monday night in the key 18-49 demographic. TLC’s “90 Day Fiance” finished in spots 3 and 4.
CATCH UP… WWE Smackdown Viewership for post-Money in the Bank episode featuring Otis mystery partner Braun Strowman, Charlotte appearance
Nasa has touched down on Mars for the first time in six years in a mission designed to mine more information about the Red Planet.
The US space agency’s latest probe, InSight, landed on the planet at 7.55pm (UK time), having travelled for six months and 300 million miles.
In an extremely tricky landing, the lander slowed down from 12,300mph to 5mph, the equivalent of human jogging speed, in just seven minutes after hitting Mars’s atmosphere. The mission follows in the footsteps of the Curiosity rover, which landed there in 2012, but the $1bn joint US-European mission will break new ground – literally and metaphorically.
Here’s what you need to know about the landmark mission.
What will InSight…
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SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)…
WWE
— WWE issued a press release on Monday announcing a new free tier to the WWE Network.
Content in the free tier includes:
New shows including Raw Talk, streaming Monday nights each week immediately following Raw
Groundbreaking original series including Monday Night War, Ride Along, Table for 3, Photo Shoot and Story Time
Recent episodes of WWE’s flagship programs Monday Night Raw, Friday Night SmackDown and NXT
Select historical WWE pay-per-views and NXT TakeOver events
Weekly WWE highlights, Top 10, WWE’s The Bump, WWE Now, The Best of WWE and WWE Timeline
According to the release, there is no credit card required to access the free tier and it was made available as of Monday morning.
McMahon: This feels like the first step into something else for WWE and the Network specifically. There have been longstanding rumors that WWE is in the market to sell its PPV rights, similar to the deal UFC put together with ESPN last year. If nothing else, and they continue to operate as usual, a free tier to the network is a good way to introduce potential new customers. I would imagine that it would be heavily supported by ads, which offers another revenue stream for WWE (even if it’s small). Just my guess, but this feels like the first step towards some evolution with the WWE Network.
— RAW Talk will be one of the new shows on WWE Network, and will be included in the free tier. It’s essentially a postgame show that will air at 11 p.m. each week following RAW on USA Network. WWE announced that Samoa Joe and Charly Caruso will be the hosts of RAW Talk.
— SmackDown’s viewership rose to 2.17 million on Friday night, headlined by the Daniel Bryan vs. Sheamus main event. The show was up from 2.044 million viewers the week before. SmackDown did a 0.6 rating in the 18-49 demo, up from a 0.5 the previous week.
AEW
— In a recent social media post, Cody said that his AEW TNT Championship open challenge is open to non-contracted wrestlers as well as contracted wrestlers to AEW. His first challenger will be on this week’s AEW Dynamite, when Jungle Boy challenges for the championship.
McMahon: This opens a lot of possibilities for AEW. A few months ago they brought in Jeff Cobb for what was essentially a few dates. This could open the possibility of more one-off appearances from big-name guys on the independent scene. The open challenge gimmick can run dry pretty quickly if limited to just their own roster, so this added wrinkle provides a lot of fun possibilities.
— Matches scheduled for Dark this week include:
The Butcher & The Blade vs. Jon Cruz & Joe Alonzo
Billy Gunn vs. John Skyler
The Natural Nightmares vs. Brandon Cutler & Peter Avalon
Santana & Ortiz vs. Leroy & EJ Lews
McMahon: Dark in recent weeks has been morphed into a show comprised largely of squash matches, which is needed for a company like AEW that relies on publishing records. Dark is shoulder programming to Dynamite, and shouldn’t be used as a “must-see” show every week. Part of the allure to AEW is that, unlike WWE, it doesn’t require you to invest 7-10 hours per week to be a fan and follow the entire product. Using the show to give talent wins is a smart strategy and a necessary one in an environment where records matter. For those records to look impressive, wrestlers need wins and squash matches is an easy and effective way to accomplish that. The structure of the show has been easy to watch as well. Last week was just a series of matches, with short introductions from Excalibur and Tazz before each one.
— Matches scheduled for Dynamite this week include:
Cody (c) vs. Jungle Boy — AEW TNT Championship Match
Kenny Omega & Adam Page (c) vs. Jimmy Havoc & Kip Sabian — AEW Tag Team Championship Match
Chris Jericho vs. Colt Cabana
Brian Cage is advertised to wrestle
Tony Schiavone will interview FTR
— AEW World Champion Jon Moxley tweeted over the weekend that he’s dealing with a broken tailbone.
IMPACT
— IMPACT debuts a new show on AXS tomorrow night, IMPACT in 60. The show will air at 10 p.m. ET, immediately following a new episode of IMPACT Wrestling on AXS.
According to a press release, “The hour-long series chronicles the promotion’s celebrated 18-year history under the IMPACT and TNA: Total Nonstop Action banners. Headlined by some of the greatest champions to enter the ring, each episode features a collection of full matches showcasing a different wrestler, championships, factions or match types.”
Tuesday’s episode will be the “Best of the Asylum Years.”
McMahon: For longtime Impact fans, this will be a fun trip down memory lane, it feels like. I’m not sure what sort of monetary value IMPACT is getting for the content, but it’s a way for them to theoretically monetize their content with little effort. They aren’t producing much new footage, if at all (maybe introductions) for these shows, so there’s little risk involved with this new show. Given that Anthem owns the promotion and the network, it would make sense for them to leverage more content on AXS.
MLW
— MLW announced that its July 16 and July 18 events scheduled for New York and Philadelphia have been postponed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The league said that all tickets purchased will be honored on the rescheduled dates.
The new date for the Philadelphia show will be Dec. 5 at 2300 Arena and the New York date will be rescheduled on Feb. 4 at the Melrose Ballroom.
“To our fans we thank you for your support as we all work through this,” said MLW CEO Court Bauer. “Our thoughts go out to those directly affected as well as those on the frontlines.”
Independents
— Some sad news to report … Danny Havoc, who wrestled for GCW and CZW, died over the weekend. Havoc made his CZW debut in 2005 and was a two-time CZW Ultraviolent Underground Champion as well as a CZW World Junior Heavyweight Champion and a CZE World Tag Team Champion.
CZW wrote on Twitter: “This cuts too deep. Grant “Danny Havoc” Berkland. He was an inspiration to so many and a friend to all and our hearts go out to his family and loved ones. We can take a small comfort in knowing the entire wrestling community are sharing the same grief right now.”
IMPACT wrestler Sami Callihan tweeted, “Absolutely heartbroken. I wouldn’t be who I am today without Danny Havoc. Absolute genius who never got the credit he deserved. I’m beyond privileged to been able to travel the world with him. Reach out to your loved one. Life is so short. Love you Grant. RIP”
Allie, who was with IMPACT and is now with AEW, tweeted, “Danny Havoc always extended kindness to me and welcomed me into the CZW family. My heart hurts for his friends and loved ones.”
GCW tweeted, “With a broken heart, the GCW family mourns the loss of Grant Berkland aka Danny Havoc.
Danny was an incredibly talented, intelligent, caring & genuine person.
He was also an elite performer that entertained a generation of fans & inspired a generation of aspiring performers.”
Authorities ordered more than 10,000 people to flee from “catastrophic” wildfires moving across north-east Australia, as heavy rains in the south-east caused flooding that left at least two people dead.
In the state of Queensland, a heatwave and strong winds fuelled a massive fire that destroyed homes and led to the evacuation of all 8,000 residents from the town of Gracemere, the first time this has happened in its 150-year history.
The fire was threatening the larger town of Rockhampton, which is about five miles away and has about 80,000 residents.
The Bureau of Meteorology declared a catastrophic fire danger in the region, the first time such a level has been applied in Queensland.
"[This is] unprecedented, uncharted, but we have a plan,” said Annastacia Palaszczuk, the state’s premier.
"We expect to be in this heatwave at least until next Tuesday, so it is going to be very serious conditions from now until then.”
Scorched earth: a firefighter on duty in Deepwater, near Bundaberg, QueenslandCredit:
QLD Fire and Emergency
About 200 fires were burning across the state. Some started several days ago following a period of unseasonal dry and windy conditions. It was not clear last night whether there had been casualties.
In some areas, police warned people who refused to evacuate their homes that they could “burn to death”.
“If you have children with you, you need to think really hard about not losing a house, but losing the people you care most about,” said the state’s Deputy Police Commissioner, Bob Gee.
“People will burn to death… It is no different to a Category 5 cyclone coming through your door.
Fire 🔥 Danger Ratings have reached Catastrophic for the first time in #Queensland due to the combination of a very dry, hot airmass and strong, gusty westerly winds, according to @BOM_au pic.twitter.com/RsK4cXB1aJ
— WMO | OMM (@WMO) November 28, 2018
Queensland Fire and Emergency Services said aerial tankers had released water on the blaze near Gracemere and helped to “suppress” it.
"However, that cannot operate through the night, and in some of those areas it’s actually too dangerous to have crews in those areas," said Katarina Carroll, the head of the agency.
“We have never ever in this state been in this situation before.”
Alison French, who left Gracemere with her two young children, said the fire was “horrendous”.
“You wouldn’t want to be near it," she told ABC News.
"I don’t know if we’re going to have anything to go back to, but it seems to be getting worse."
Burned out buildings and vehicles are seen on a scorched landscape in the Deepwater area of QueenslandCredit:
AP
Robert Griffith, a Macadamia nut grower who was planning to stay with several of his staff to try to battle a fire that was less than two miles from his property, said that “the wind is hot and dry, you can smell the fire, you can see the embers flying across”.
“Everyone is pretty tired but we’re a close-knit team, so everyone’s spirits are really high,” he told The Courier Mail.
Meanwhile, Sydney flooded
As the fires continued, residents in Sydney, about 900 miles south, were cleaning up after a violent storm that caused flash flooding and turned roads into rivers. The city centre received a month’s worth of rain in two hours.
The storms caused the deaths of at least two people, including an emergency services worker and a 14-year-old killed in a car crash.
Wet through: motorists were stranded on flooded roads, while flights were cancelled and railway lines closedCredit:
PETER PARKS/AFP/Getty Images
Flooding across the city led to traffic chaos and power outages that affected 8,000 people. More than 130 commercial flights were cancelled or delayed.
During the two hours of heaviest downpour, parts of the city received as much as six inches of rain.
"For that intensity and that duration, that’s the sort of rainfall you’d expect to occur about once every 100 years for that particular site," said Ann Farrell, from the Bureau of Meteorology.
WWE continues to make announcements regarding next month’s Greatest Royal Rumble in Saudi Arabia.
We now have a better idea of what the card will look like, with WWE advertising that there will be seven title matches on the show. The WWE, Universal, Intercontinental, United States, and Cruiserweight Championships will be on the line, along with the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team titles. It’s notable that neither Women’s Championship is mentioned in that list.
The event’s marquee attraction is the 50-man Greatest Royal Rumble match, so it appears that at least some people will be wrestling twice. John Cena, Triple H, Roman Reigns, AJ Styles, Braun Strowman, The New Day, Randy Orton, and Shinsuke Nakamura have been announced for the show.
King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia is set to host the Greatest Royal Rumble on April 27th. Tickets will be made available on March 31st, and the show is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. AST (which is noon Eastern in the United States).
WWE hasn’t revealed their broadcast plans for the show, but Roman Reigns said in an interview last week that he believes it will be a “huge” WWE Network special.
Two matches have been confirmed for Sakura Genesis on April 1.
The main event was officially announced today as Kazuchika Okada defending the IWGP Heavyweight title against New Japan Cup winner Zack Sabre Jr.. If Okada were to defeat Sabre, he would tie Hiroshi Tanahashi’s record of most IWGP Heavyweight title defenses in a single reign at 11. With submission wins over Tetsuya Naito, Kota Ibushi, SANADA and Tanahashi, however, Sabre will prove to be someone very difficult to beat.
The other match announced for the card is a triple threat match pitting new IWGP Jr. tag team champions Desperado and Yoshinobu Kanemaru against BUSHI and Hiromu Takahashi and Roppongi 3K in a triple threat match. This would be a rematch from the 46th anniversary show that took place back on March 6, where Desperado and Kanemario won the championships from Roppongi 3K. All three teams ended up in an angle at the New Japan Cup finals where Roppongi 3K ended up standing tall over the other two teams.
There were several angles shot during the New Japan Cup finals that may or may not lead to matches on this show. Minoru Suzuki and Tetsuya Naito spent most of their match on the show brawling with one another, and ended up brawling into the press area once the match was over. Meanwhile, Juice Robinson pinned Hirooki Goto in a tag match, making it clear that he was the top contender for the NEVER title. The Killer Elite Squad also called out current IWGP tag team champions EVIL and SANADA, though EVIL is still out with a broken orbital bone.
Sakura Genesis will air at 3 a.m. EDT on April 1. It will have English commentary.
PWTorch editor Wade Keller presents a special Thursday Flagship edition of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast featuring a WrestleMania 36 Preview with ex-WWE Creative Team member and professional stand-up comedian Matt McCarthy.
(Search “wade keller” to subscribe in podcast app or CLICK HERE to subscribe in Apple Podcasts.)
Earlier this month, Triple H talked about initial discussions with New Japan Pro Wrestling on doing business together. This week, the other side spoke on a potential working relationship.
Mr. Kidani, the president of Bushiroad, which owns New Japan, wrote about “single global markets” as it relates to his main businesses – playing cards and pro wrestling.
The president floated the idea of potentially placing New Japan video content on WWE Network. This would increase New Japan’s visibility as part of their global expansion plans, especially among English-speaking wrestling fans. Mr. Kitani said this is “one such strategy” the company is considering.
Overall, both cards and wrestling are popular in Japan, especially after what Mr. Kidani described as the “revival” of New Japan in recent years.
However, Mr. Kidani noted in his blog that New Japan still trails WWE on a global scale because WWE is the “strongest wrestling corporation in the world.” Therefore, New Japan is considering whether to work with WWE, or continue to compete against WWE in the global market. And, if they work with WWE, will WWE eventually try to gobble up New Japan’s top stars once they’re exposed to WWE’s audience?
Mr. Kidani added that WWE’s chief growth area is WWE Network distribution, which New Japan has tried to emulate with the New Japan World streaming service to increase their business.
France is considering imposing a state of emergency to stop a repeat of the violence in Paris that left swathes of the city centre looking like a war zone and injured 133 people.
President Emmanuel Macron returned from a G20 summit in Argentina on Sunday morning and went directly to the Arc de Triomphe to assess the damage at the historic monument caused by so-called “yellow vest” anti-tax protestors.
The arch, which lies at the top of the prestigious Champs Elysées avenue, was where the violence kicked off early on Saturday morning before spreading as far as the Louvre and the Opera districts.
Mr Macron was due to hold a lunchtime meeting with the prime minister, interior minister and top security service officials at the Elysée presidential palace to discuss the unrest in Paris and many other French regions.
When asked if the government might impose a state of emergency, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said it would be among the options considered at the Elysée meeting.
At least two “yellow vest” protestors seriously injured when a crowd pushed down railings at Tuileries gardens on Rue de Rivoli in Paris. Gilets jaunes pic.twitter.com/KEET0mSdHY
— Rory Mulholland (@mulhollandrory) December 1, 2018
"It is out of the question that each weekend becomes a meeting or ritual for violence," he said.
The comment came as calls were being made on social media for the “yellow vests,” whose revolt was sparked by planned fuel tax hikes, to meet again next Saturday on the Champs Elysées.
The yellow vest movement, which began just a few weeks ago, has morphed into a broad opposition front to Mr Macron, a 40-year-old pro-business centrist elected in May 2017 who is accused of being the “president of the rich” and of neglecting ordinary French people.
Protesters defaced the city with slogans such as "the yellow vests will triumph"Credit:
GEOFFROY VAN DER HASSELT/AFP/Getty Images
Violent anarchist and far-right groups have since infiltrated it and are thought to be behind many of Saturday’s clashes in Paris.
Mr Macron faces a dilemma in how to respond to the "yellow vests", not least because they are a grassroots movement with no formal leaders and a wide range of demands.
An estimated 75,000 demonstrators, most of them peaceful, were counted across the country on Saturday, the interior ministry said.
PWTorch editor Wade Keller presents a special Thursday Flagship edition of the Wade Keller Pro Wrestling Podcast featuring a WrestleMania 36 Preview with ex-WWE Creative Team member and professional stand-up comedian Matt McCarthy.
(Search “wade keller” to subscribe in podcast app or CLICK HERE to subscribe in Apple Podcasts.)
After canceling their Halloween Weekend tour in Louisiana last month, TNA has “postponed” their scheduled trip to India in December. Included was a PPV taping in Mumbai.
Three events were scheduled for the tour. However, TNA only announced via press release that the “One Night Only” PPV taping on December 4 had been postponed due to “logistical issues.” Prowrestling.net reports that all three scheduled events have been scratched.
TNA’s official announcement issued late Wednesday night/Thursday morning reads:
“Multi Screen Media (MSM) and TNA Wrestling, the international professional wrestling entertainment organization, jointly announced today that the TNA One Night Only: Mumbai live event has been postponed.
The live event that was scheduled to take place on December 4, has now been postponed to 2016 to a yet-to-be decided date. The postponement is primarily due to logistical issues around the timing of the event.
As soon as the new dates are firmed up, it will be announced in an update. While TNA is looking forward to coming to India soon, MSM is geared up to host the entire entourage of TNA in India.”
TNA does not have any more dates on the schedule in 2015. TNA is scheduled for a five-day run of TV and PPV tapings in early January coinciding with the move to Pop TV.
It remains to be seen how TNA handles the TNA Title tournament without the scheduled tapings in India.
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Nasa’s deep space explorer Osiris-Rex flew on Monday to within a dozen miles of its destination, a skyscraper-sized asteroid believed to hold organic compounds fundamental to life as well as the potential to collide with Earth in about 150 years.
Launched in September 2016, Osiris-Rex embarked on Nasa’s unprecedented seven-year mission to conduct a close-up survey of the asteroid Bennu, collect a sample from its surface and return that material to Earth for study.
Bennu, a rocky mass roughly a third of a mile wide and shaped like a giant acorn, orbits the sun at roughly the same distance as Earth and is thought to be rich in carbon-based organic molecules dating back to the earliest days of the solar system. Water, another vital component to the evolution of life, may also be trapped in the asteroid’s minerals.
Scientists believe that asteroids and comets crashing into early Earth delivered organic compounds and water that seeded the planet for life, and atomic-level analysis of samples from Bennu could help prove that theory.
But there is another, more existential reason to study Bennu.
Hello, asteroid Bennu! Our @OSIRISREx spacecraft flew over 2 billion miles to meet you. Here, the spacecraft's camera captures a full rotation of the asteroid. OSIRIS-REx will study Bennu for almost a year & prepare to collect and return a sample to Earth. https://t.co/WG3vVeRoV1 pic.twitter.com/2itcL6qxtC
— NASA (@NASA) December 3, 2018
Scientists estimate there is a one-in-2,700 chance of the asteroid slamming catastrophically into Earth 166 years from now. That probability ranks Bennu No. 2 on Nasa’s catalog of 72 near-Earth objects potentially capable of hitting the planet.
Osiris-Rex will help scientists understand how heat radiated from the sun is gently steering Bennu on an increasingly menacing course through the solar system. That solar energy is believed to be nudging the asteroid ever closer toward Earth’s path each time the asteroid makes its closest approach to our planet every six years.
"By the time we collect the sample in 2020 we will have a much better idea of the probability that Bennu would impact Earth in the next 150 years," mission spokeswoman Erin Morton said. Scientists have estimated that in 2135 Bennu could pass closer to Earth than the moon, which orbits at a distance of about 250,000 miles, and possibly come closer still some time between 2175 and 2195.
Asteroid BennuCredit:
NASA
Osiris-Rex reached the "preliminary survey" phase of its mission on Monday, soaring to within 12 miles of the asteroid. The spacecraft will pass just 1.2 miles from Bennu in late December, where it will enter the object’s gravitational pull.
From that stage, the spacecraft will begin gradually tightening its orbit around the asteroid, spiraling to within just 6 feet of its surface. Osiris-Rex will then extend its robot arm to snatch a sample of Bennu’s terrain in a "touch-and-go" maneuver set for July 2020.
Osiris-Rex will later fly back to Earth, jettisoning a capsule bearing the asteroid specimen for a parachute descent in the Utah desert in September 2023.
NASA is developing a strategy for deflecting Bennu, or any other asteroid found to be on a collision course with Earth, by use of a special spacecraft to slam into the object hard enough to nudge it onto a safer path, said Lindley Johnson, a planetary defense officer with Nasa’s Science Mission Directorate.
"But this is all dependent on the outcome of a very close approach that Bennu has with Earth in September 2135," Johnson said. "We’ll just need to wait and see. Rather, our great-great-grandchildren will need to see."