Shortly before AEW Dynamite went on air tonight, Cody Rhodes, the son of Dusty Rhodes, would tweet the below.

What a wonderful surprise to find in the Go Position...

which is now, “The Dusty Position” featuring his authentic cowbell 💛#AEW pic.twitter.com/rKX81wP2Ne

— Cody Rhodes (@CodyRhodes) October 16, 2019

The “Go Position” is the area behind the curtain where wrestlers come out to the ring. Often this is where agents and bookers will sit and give wrestlers last-minute information. In WWE, it is known as “The Gorilla Position” after Gorilla Monsoon, and in WCW, it was called “The Jody Position” after Jody Hamilton. Now in AEW, it is named “The Dusty Position” after Dusty Rhodes.

The XFL draft began this week, and the average player salary has been revealed to be $$55,000; this is up from the $45,000 average salary for a player during the original XFL’s run in 2001. The player’s contracts will run Dec. 4, 2019, through May 31, 2020.

It should be noted that the salary for starting quarterbacks salary isn’t included in that figure, as they will have a different pay grade and potentially earn almost 10x as much as their teammates with an annual salary of up to $495,000.

To compare these figures to what NFL players earn, the league minimum is $480,000, and the average salary is $495,000.

Vince McMahon is personally funding the XFL via Alpha Entertainment LLC. He initially sold $100 million in WWE stock in December in 2017, and then an additional $270 million in March 2019. The league is scheduled to start in February 2020.

WWE has announced that Eric Bischoff is being replaced by Bruce Prichard as the Executive Director of the Friday Night Smackdown, and has left the company with immediate effect. WWE needed a scapegoat for Smackdown losing 25% of its audience between weeks 1 and 2 of its move to FOX, and it looks like Bischoff is it.

You can read the full press release below:

WWE® NAMES BRUCE PRICHARD EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SMACKDOWN®

Stamford, Conn., October 15, 2019 – WWE (NYSE: WWE) today announced that it has named Bruce Prichard the Executive Director of Friday Night SmackDown, reporting directly to WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon.

Prichard will oversee the creative development of Friday Night SmackDown on FOX and ensure integration across all platforms and lines of business, replacing Eric Bischoff.

Prichard brings nearly 40 years of experience in sports entertainment with an extensive background in character development and creative storytelling. Over the course of his career, Prichard has served in a variety of roles including announcer, producer, agent and on-screen personality. Earlier this year, Prichard returned to WWE as a member of the company’s creative team.

When he initially took the role, Bischoff declared it a bigger opportunity than when he was president of WCW on his podcast.

“It’s not maybe, this is the biggest opportunity I’ve ever had in this industry, granted when Bill Shaw made me president of WCW. Obviously that was a very, very big moment. But I was learning on the job there. I had nothing to lose there. I was taking a company in WCW that had never turned a dollar of profit, that was such a distant number two to WWF at that time that we weren’t even really number two, a company that was fraught with a bad history and all kinds of internal issues. So I had nothing to lose. In this situation, this is an entirely different ballgame here.”

Eric Bischoff had only held the position since June 2019 and recently moved to Connecticut to be closer to WWE’s headquarters in Stamford.

While Tyson Fury is a self-admitted life long fan of WWE, it seems his love of pro wrestling isn’t the only reason he is competing in at Crown Jewel. It is also the $15 million he is being paid for the one-off match according to boxing insiders in the UK. This payoff will make Fury the highest paid person ever for a single wrestling match.

It was reported at the time Floyd Mayweather was paid $20 million for his match against Big Show, but that number was flagged as massively inflated by WWE insiders and Dave Meltzer at the time.

Undefeated Fury is currently recovering from an eye injury that required 50 stitches from his match against Otto Wallin in Las Vegas last month. At the WWE media event last Friday, Fury told reporters:

“I was supposed to be resting while the eye mended, but I’m excited about 385lbs of Braun coming at me. Yeah, me against Wilder is the biggest fight in boxing, but I’m not thinking about that now. I’m just enjoying my life – and concentrating on WWE.”

Fury is set to box Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas on February 22 in a much-anticipated rematch after their first match ended in a draw. The original contest will be remembered for Fury somehow getting back up after a devastating blow in the 12th round with NXT’s Mauro Ranallo shouting, “Down goes Fury! Mamma mia” on commentary.

His pay-off for his match against Wilder will dwarf his WWE payoff, but the rematch is subject to Fury coming out uninjured against Braun Strowman.

Mike and Maria Kanellis would sign 5-year contracts in June 2019, reportedly for $500,000 each per year. But earlier today, Mike posted on his Twitter he has asked for his release because he wants to wrestle more than once per week.

https://twitter.com/RealMikeBennett/status/1183855911619776512

It should be noted that Luke Harper asked previously for his release from WWE and was declined, which is WWE’s prerogative.

After renewing his WWE deal, Kanellis has been embarrassed weekly since his real-life wife Maria announced her pregnancy. She would claim he was not the father and accused him of not being a real man leading to him being squashed in matches. This could be an additional reason for Mike wants out of WWE.

It isn’t known if Maria Kanellis will also be looking to leave WWE.

Jon Moxley was scheduled to defend his IWGP United States Championship against Juice Robinson in a NoDQ match at this morning’s King of Pro Wrestling event. Sadly for all involved, Moxley was unable to attend the event due to travel problems associated with Typhoon Hagibis that hit Japan over the weekend. These problems would also cause Zack Sabre Jr to miss the show.

Due to not being able to compete, New Japan announced that Moxley would be stripped of his championship a few hours before the show. In its place, Lance Archer against Juice Robinson for the vacated title was booked. Originally scheduled to be a standard match, Archer demanded the match be contested under NoDQ rules and would win the title following a Blackout on a stack of chairs then the iron claw. After the match, David Finlay, who was returning from a long-term injury, attacked Lance Archer, setting up a future match between the pair.

There have been some conspiracy theories on Twitter that Moxley vacating the title was to avoid him having to lose to a non-contracted AEW wrestler. Kenny Omega would read these and mockingly made the below comment.

On October 12th, Taya Valkyrie became the longest-reigning IMPACT Knockouts Champion by bettering Taryn Terrell’s record reign of 279 days. She won the title for the first time on January 6, 2019, at Impact Wrestling’s Homecoming event by beating Tessa Blanchard. Since then, she has defended and retained against notable names, including Madison Rayne, Jordynne Grace, Su Yung, Havok, and Rosemary.

There has been some dispute on what the record actually was because IMPACT Wrestling had already acknowledged Taya as the longest-reigning champion at the start of September. This was because of how IMPACT has decided to count title runs.

Taryn Terrell, the previous longest reigning champion had won the title on September 19, 2014, but it wasn’t until November 19, 2014, that the match was aired. She would then lose the title on June 25, 2015, but it was not until July 15, 2015, that it aired. Technically that puts Taryn Terrell’s reign at 238 days, but based on air dates is 279. So it’s all a matter of your viewpoint.

Either way, there is no longer any debate on who is the longest-reigning champion, as it is now Valkyrie either way.

Valkyrie is no stranger to record-breaking reigns as she was AAA’s Reina de Reinas Champion for 945 days, between 17th August 2014 and 19th March 2017.

While her Reina de Reinas reign will likely stand for many years, if not decades, there is a realistic chance her run as IMPACT Knockouts Champion could come to an end against Tenille Dashwood at IMPACT’s Bound For Glory PPV, next Sunday.

Last night’s Friday Night SmackDown had 2.898 million viewers in the overnight ratings. These numbers are down 25% from last week’s big premiere on FOX. Final figures will be available sometime Tuesday but usually only vary in the tens of thousands.

The episode was built around night one of the WWE Draft and featured Seth Rollins defeating Roman Reigns, and Bayley turning heel and winning the SmackDown Woman’s Championship from Charlotte Flair.

While losing viewers was to be anticipated as last week’s show was hyped and had an appearance from The Rock and promised (but didn’t deliver) appearances by Steve Austin, and The Undertaker. But losing 1,000,000 viewers is atrocious, and there is no way to put a positive spin on it. NXT took three weeks to lose 25% of its audience, but it only took Smackdown one week.

The general consensus is the show wasn’t good, so the is a real possibility some viewers will have been put off, and the ratings will continue to fall.

WWE held a press conference in Las Vegas this afternoon to announce both Lesnar vs. Velasquez, and Fury vs. Strowman will take place at Crown Jewel Saudi Arabia on October 31.

Both Velasquez and Fury appeared on last week’s Friday Night Smackdown and set in motion their angles with Lesnar and Strowman, respectively.

Triple H said:

“We will be showcasing our most exciting card in history.”

You can watch the press conference below.

Despite Shawn Michaels calling Crown Jewel “glorified house show,” it is becoming a notable event on the WWE calendar and has the potential to rival WrestleMania for significance and big matches. The money that WWE can pay wrestlers and outside athletics for this event due to the event being funded by the Saudi government changes the game with regards dream matches.

AEW’s second episode of Dynamite had 1.081 million viewers on TNT and 122,000 on TruTV, with NXT having 790,000 viewers.

Both shows were down from last week, but that was to be expected considering last week was the first week of the Wednesday Night Wars, and interest and curiosity were at there peak.

It’s normal for a debuting show’s numbers to drop the second week, so I doubt AEW will be worrying. WWE, on the other hand, might be starting to wonder how they got themselves into this position.

It needs to be noted that baseball did big numbers (5.856 million) and will feature heavily on Wednesdays for the rest of the month and will eat into both shows viewerships.

Jay And Silent Bob are back with their new movie “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot,” released in theaters 15 October 2019, which features our very own Chris Jericho (cheap plug).

As a way of promoting the movie and supporting their friend Chris, they appeared at AEW’s debut Dynamite show from the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC.

Obviously, word got back to WWE, and they had their invite to the FOX premiere of Smackdown two nights later canceled where they were supposed to appear on the blue carpet.

Kevin Smith, who wrote and directed “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot,” and stars as Silent Bob told the “Rich Eisen Show”:

“We were supposed to go do WWE, me and Jay, the very next day, which was Friday.”

“Was it Friday? SmackDown. And then the morning after, because we were on the AEW show, it trended, like, there was a lot of coverage and stuff. So the next morning, we were told that WWE was like, ‘You can’t come on anymore,’ and they canceled us. They kicked me and Jay off the show, but not in a crazy way, they didn’t hit us with chairs.”

You can watch this part of the interview below.

Jessie Kresa, better known to wrestling fans as ODB, the four-time TNA Women’s Knockout Champion sadly had her food truck burned down on September 7th. She was insured, but the insurance company is only willing to cover a small percentage of the cost. Therefore she has started an Indiegogo campaign to make up the remaining money.

Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website where people can donate and get rewards in exchange. These include:

Autographed photos

T-Shirts

A phone call with ODB

Signed BBQ and Hot Sauce

A TNA Impact worn wedding dress

Full details can be found here.

ODB had somewhat stepped away from the wrestling business to focus on her food truck business. She does still make appearances at conversations and made a surprise appearance at All Out, participating in the Casino Battle Royal, but her food truck is her primary source of income.

Even if you can’t contribute, please consider spreading the word by sharing her Indiegogo link https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/help-odb-get-cookin-again#/ on your social media accounts.