Voices of Wrestling Podcast Network

Brandon Thurston reviews the recent events that led up to WWE's decision to cut costs and lay off or furlough workers, as well as the recent closure and bankruptcy of Vince McMahon's XFL.

May 2018: WWE discloses it received a minority stake in Alpha Entertainment related to XFL IP transaction with Alpha.

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/us/wwe/SEC/sec-show.aspx?FilingId=12727687&Cik=0001091907&Type=PDF&hasPdf=1

Dec 2017, Nov 2018, Mar 2019: Vince McMahon sells a total of $379.7 million in WWE shares, most if not all, to fund the XFL/Alpha Entertainment

https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/status/1250129065052422147

Feb 6: Vince McMahon on Q4 earnings call takes XFL questions

https://twitter.com/BrandonThurston/status/1249820096220073985 (AUDIO)

March 10: Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System drops lawsuit against WWE

https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/status/1245030531298967552

March 11: NBA suspends season

March 12: Smackdown proceeds in the PC with no audience

March 12: XFL suspends 2020 regular season

March 12: WWE statement on potential impact of COVID19

https://corporate.wwe.com/investors/news/press-releases/2020/03-12-2020-223008742

-WWE withdraws its earlier Q1 guidance, due to COVID19.

-WWE acknowledges it may be forced to cancel events, Wrestlemania not mentioned specifically.

-WWE doesn’t estimate the potential impact at this time.

-WWE has cash & debt capacity of $500 million.

"The company had guided 2020 adjusted OIBDA of $250M-$300M and contractual revenue growth of about $185M. For Q1, it had forecast OIBDA of $60M-$65M (a fivefold year-over-year increase)."

March 16: Trump issues stay-home guidelines. “Some say July or August”.

March 16: WWE announces Wrestlemania will not take place in Tampa, will instead take place at the PC.

March 24: Vince McMahon puts 3.5 million of his WWE shares into prepaid forward contract with Morgan Stanley

https://otp.tools.investis.com/clients/us/wwe/SEC/sec-show.aspx?FilingId=14033656&Cik=0001091907&Type=PDF&hasPdf=1

March 26: Wrestlemania taping concludes. News breaks Roman Reigns pulls out of Wrestlemania match with Goldberg.

March 31: WWE and Sony finalize renewed India TV deal

https://corporate.wwe.com/investors/news/press-releases/2020/03-31-2020-080031784

March 31: Fox and FITE announce they’ll offer WWE as a PPV. Fox to broadcast 22 hours of WWE library.

April 1: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issues state-wide stay-at-home order

https://twitter.com/WFLA/status/1245400616253472771 (AUDIO)

April 4: Trump holds call with leaders of sports organizations, including Vince McMahon and Dana White.

April 5: WWE sends internal memo from Paul Levesque that a WWE employee had tested positive for COVID-19

Fightful reported and confirmed with WWE on April 11

April 7: WWE announces its Q1 earnings report and conference call will be April 23 after market close.

April 9: WWE announces it adjourns annual meeting due to COVID19.

April 9: America First Action PAC Announces $26.6M Investment in Battleground States

$18.5 million for Florida: $7.2mm in Tampa, $11.3mm in Orlando markets.

https://www.a1apac.org/news/america-first-action-pac-announces-26.6m-investment-in-battleground-states/

April 9: Gov. DeSantis amends stay-home order

Pro sports were added to a list of essential businesses allowed to stay open in an April 9 memorandum to include “employees at a professional sports and media production with a national audience … only if the location is closed to the general public.”

fox6now.com/2020/04/14/florida-stay-at-home-order-amended-pro-wrestling-wwe-deemed-essential/

April 10: XFL lays off most employees, suspends operations.

April 10: The Revival are released from WWE.

April 10: Vince McMahon decides to return to taping Raw, Smackdown and NXT live every week going forward, beginning with Smackdown on this night.

Meltzer reports, “Contracts with both NBC Universal and Fox call for a certain number of shows per year that can be taped. For Raw, that number is three”

https://www.f4wonline.com/wwe-news/wwe-resume-live-raw-smackdown-nxt-tv-shows-308611

April 13: WWE and Ad Council partner to launch national PSA for COVID-19 prevention.

https://community.wwe.com/hope/news/wwe-and-ad-council-partner-launch-national-psas-raise-awareness-during-covid-19-pandemic

https://twitter.com/WWECommunity/status/1249713258325520385 (AUDIO)

April 13: Alpha Entertainment (XFL parent) files for chapter 11 bankruptcy

http://courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.deb.180998/gov.uscourts.deb.180998.1.0.pdf

https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/status/1250112332363112448

https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/status/1250113644286918664

https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/status/1250114458774654977

https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/status/1250107587518853120

Debtor’s list: https://www.scribd.com/document/456411482/XFL-Chapter-11-Certification-of-Debtor-s-List-of-Creditors

April 13: Orange County Mayor Jerry Demmings clarifies that WWE has been deemed an essential business by the governor.

https://twitter.com/harryaaron/status/1249814965059497992 (AUDIO)

April 13: Gov. DeSantis’s press secretary Cody McCloud tells Marc Raimondi that UFC or boxing could be deemed essential. “The memo does not specify specific sports, as long as the event location is closed to the general public.”

https://twitter.com/marc_raimondi/status/1249871227000258561

April 14: Gov. DeSantis at press conference on WWE: “There’s no crowd or anything. It’s a very small number of people.

https://twitter.com/wrestlenomics/status/1250188085243060225

April 14: Orange County Sheriff says deputies responded to the PC in March and April

https://twitter.com/StephanieCNews/status/1250158815594545157

April 15: Vince McMahon’s message to employees

https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/exclusives/transcript-vince-mcmahon-s-message-wwe-employees-ahead-cuts

April 15: Gov. DeSantis dismissed notions that politics played a role in decision to amend executive order

https://twitter.com/NewsGuyGreg/status/1250540257684193280 (AUDIO)

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Welcome to Episode 68 of Everything Elite! This week, AB, Nate and Mike are back to talk all about All Elite Wrestling and the Elite Extended Universe. The gang talks about the Double or Nothing announcement & WWE’s Black Wednesday, plays ELITE OR DELETE of the episode of Dynamite that took place at an UNDISCLOSED LOCATION, talk about ratings, their thoughts on the Empty Arena and maybe no holds barred AEW World Title match between Jon Moxley and Jake Hager, the events of a slow episode of Dynamite and where they want to see this Sabian/Ford/Havoc unit go.

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The news of Howard Finkel's passing broke ten minutes before we started to record so the start of this episode is a bit of a bummer but Garrett and Liam eventually get into a spirited debate about whether Jon Moxley vs. Jake Hager was good plus talk about one of the most fun episodes of NXT in weeks!

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Super J-Cast : 103 - Even More SJC Classic Watch-Along Super J Cup 94 - We pick up right where we left off with our SJC Classic Watch-Along of the greatest junior tournament ever - the 1994 Super J-Cup. Joel and Damon also discuss where we see pro wrestling heading in 2020, pro wrestling in Florida ( no, not the good one ), our thoughts on this year's MSG show (will it even happen?) , and so much more. Buy a T-Shirt at :https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/superjcast - Follow us on Twitter : @thesuperjcast Join the Discord: https://t.co/QiWf1n4NVu?amp=1 

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Welp. Of course, we're starting with our review of 2A...yeah, no.

WWE made massive cuts to their talent, production and backstage roster so we'll discuss all of the moves, what it means and much more. We'll also touch on AEW's Double or Nothing and NOAH's Global Tag League.

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Welcome back to Open the Voice Gate - Rewind and Rewatch, where Case (https://twitter.com/_inyourcase) and Mike (https://twitter.com/fujiiheya) are Rewinding and Rewatching the Dragon Gate USA era of shows.

In this second show, Case and Mike review “Open the Untouchable Gate” from Chicago on September 6th, 2009. In order to do so, they catch up everyone with what was going on at that time with Dragongate and DGUSA, then break down the show. Davey Richards makes his first appearance in DGUSA against Shingo Takagi and perhaps cuts the best promo of 2009. Bryan Danielson does his first stint in DGUSA as he takes on then current Open the Dream Gate Champion, Naruki Doi, and a big main event where the Young Bucks face the then current Open the Twin Gate Champions, Genki Horiguchi and Ryo Kaito. After the review, Case and Mike look ahead to the build up to the crowning of the Open the Freedom Gate Champion.

(note: This episode was recorded on 3/31/2020, so somethings mentioned including the 4/4 Empty Arena Show were reviewed on the previous episode of OTVG, and we will continue to do Rewind and Rewatch weekly until DG is back running shows.)

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This week on Wrestling Omakase we debut our new format that we'll be using to get us through this current pandemic hell! Each week, John and the guest will each choose 2 matches to watch and talk about on the episode. Then we'll each choose a third match, which we'll put up to a vote on the @wrestleomakase Twitter account, letting the listeners choose our fifth and final match of the week! It's a fun retro format featuring all sorts of different wrestling!

Our first guest for the 5 Matches format is none other than the King of Banter himself, Joe Lanza of the Voices of Wrestling flagship podcast (@voiceswrestling). Joe and John open things up with some talk about how they're each adjusting to pandemic life, and John explains a little about why they're not all that interested in covering the few empty arena wrestling shows that are still happening. Once that's out of the way they get into their matches, and here they all are in order along with where you can watch them yourself:

1. Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics, WCCW 1/26/85 (WWE Network: https://watch.wwe.com/episode/WCCW-2268)

2. Meiko Satomura vs. Sareee, Sendai Girls 4/16/19 (https://rutube.ru/video/844658c07b4ad72f6c4b6417ce3dd504/)

3. Kota Ibushi vs. El Generico vs. Nick Jackson vs. Jigsaw, CHIKARA 3/28/09 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XesuznnHaA)

4. Sanshiro Takagi vs. Minoru Suzuki, DDT 6/1/17 (DDT Universe, no subscription required: https://www.ddtpro.com/universe/videos/2040)

5. Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit, WWE 5/31/01 (WWE Network: https://watch.wwe.com/episode/SmackDown-4781)

These matches give us all sorts of jumping off points including John and Joe's history attending many of the same shows and venues (and a few they didn't attend!), the current CINEMATIC WRESTLING boom, US indie style from 11 years ago leading into AEW, and much more. It's a packed two hours covering all sorts of different wrestling, this week!

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Vince McMahon's latest endeavor into professional football seems to have come to an end after most XFL employees were laid off this morning.

Does WWE's "cinematic" approach demonstrated at Wrestlemania have an economic relevance? What does it mean for the development of new stars?

Follow Wrestlenomics at twitter.com/wrestlenomics

Visit the website at wrestlenomics.com

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We haven't run out of wrestling yet! This week we talk WrestleMania, The Boneyard Match, ONE LAST BEAT, AJPW, BJW, the XFL suspending operations, the Revival finally getting their release and much more!

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Garrett and Liam talk about another week of empty arena wrestling as a solid AEW featured the battle for the title of Best Friends while NXT delivered more Gargano vs. Ciampa than you could possibly want in their feud ending cinematic match. Plus the news of The Revival being released broke right as we were wrapping up the show so we talked about that too!

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