Various: Impact Ratings for July 27th, New Japanese Women’s Promotion Debuting in US Update, Indies

Aug 1, 2023

Impact Ratings – July 27, 2023 – Highest Since January of 2022

This past Thursday’s episode of Impact Wrestling Impact! drew 153,000 viewers on AXS TV, up from the prior week’s 111,000 viewers.

It drew a 0.02 rating in the 18-49 demographic, same as the prior week’s rating.

Last year’s Impact! on July 27, 2022 drew 96,000 viewers.

Source: Wrestlenomics

Update on New Japanese Women’s Promotion Launching This Fall in the United States

As noted before, a new Japanese Joshi wrestling promotion is currently planning to launch this Fall in the United States.

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that former Ice Ribbon talent and current Stardom talent Risa Sera is another notable name confirmed to be working for this new upcoming promotion.

Johnson reported that those spoken to reportedly also stated that the brain trust behind this new promotion have been putting a lot of focus on building out its ecosystem of content. This reportedly includes a big focus on developing short and long-form anime content related to wrestling. Johnson speculated that this could be for a potential streaming deal with a major service like Netflix, Amazon, and Apple who are currently spending huge sums of money on anime content for their services.

Johnson also reported that due to this current business strategy, those spoken to stated that many of the talents who have already signed deals with this new promotion could end up having slightly modified names and characters compared to their current ones. Johnson reported that the reason would be so that the company can legally license the rights and trademarks without any potential conflicts.

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Women of Wrestling recently announced that they will be holding a new set of television tapings for WOW TV on August 2-4 and August 17-19 in Los Angeles, California.

The Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reported that streaming television provider Philo dropped AXS TV, home of Impact Wrestling, from their list of channels on July 31st. Meltzer reported that while this will not be a large loss in homes for Impact, it is still something bad for the company considering their big success from their recent Slammiversary 2023 event.

Pro Wrestling Revolver recently announced that they have pulled JT Dunn from the card of their Heat Em Up event on August 3rd in Dayton, Ohio due to unforeseen circumstances. It was also announced that Chris Sabin will be replacing Dunn for his scheduled match against Masha Slamovich at the event.

As noted before, VICE TV’s parent company Vice Media officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this past May and is currently in the process of being purchased by a group of VICE’s leading lenders. Vice Media announced on Monday that they have recently completed their sale to a new ownership group led by Fortress Investment Group, Soros Fund Management, and Monroe Capital.

Westside Xtreme Wrestling recently announced that their upcoming Shortcut to the Top 2023 event on August 12th in Obserhausen, Germany will air live on pay-per-view. It was also announced that this will be the first time ever that the company will be airing an event live on PPV providers and not on FITE.

In a recent episode of The Kurt Angle Show podcast, co-host Kurt Angle gave his thoughts about if he had any regrets having a career in TNA and his belief that he would be considered as the greatest of all-time had he stayed in WWE for his entire wrestling career. Angle stated “I don’t regret going to TNA. I absolutely love TNA, I love my eleven years there. I probably would have stayed if the money didn’t run out. I knew it was my time to go back to WWE and I wanted to finish my career where I started. If I go back, the one thing I would love to change is that I wish I didn’t get injured so much. That’s what caused my painkiller problem and my painkiller problem caused me to leave WWE. I felt like if I wasn’t going to leave, I was going to end up doing something bad, which was overdose on painkillers. I thought it was right for me to leave. If I wouldn’t have left the WWE, and I would have wrestled there 20 straight years, I really believe, to this day, I’d be the greatest of all time. That’s not me blowing smoke, that’s me being honest. I think I would be considered the greatest of all time if I would have stuck with WWE for 20 years.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

Major League Wrestling recently announced that Maki Itoh will be making her official debut for the company at their Fury Road 2023 event on September 3rd in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

MLW also recently announced a new match for the card of their Fury Road 2023 event in September 3rd in Philadelphia: